1. “Separation of Church & State! Keep your religion out of politics!”
Separation of Church and State does not mean…
- A separation of righteousness and State (that would be evil)
- A separation of politics and religion (that’s impossible)
It means a separation of governments – that the same person shouldn’t be President of the government and Pope of the Church.
Our nation was founded on freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion.
2. “The church shouldn’t get political!”
Our culture is taking moral issues, reframing them as political issues, and then accusing any pastor who addresses them of “getting political.”
But in the words of Pastor Josh McPherson, “The church isn’t getting more political, POLITICS are getting more SPIRITUAL.” When the government moved past things like building roads and issuing driver’s licenses to things like redefining marriage, erasing gender, reframing abortion as “reproductive rights” and indoctrinating kids into believing those things – the church didn’t move. Politics did.
3. Christians shouldn’t “grasp for power”
The vibe that pursuing positions of authority is wrong comes from Critical Theory (that sees the world through an oppressed / oppressor lens), not Christian Theology (that sees the world through a sin / righteousness lens).
Power is like money in the Bible. HAVING it is not moral or immoral. It’s what you DO with it that is moral or immoral.
If GODLY people don’t lead, GODLESS people fill the void. So, Christians should seek positions of authority, as the Bible states: “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked rule, the people mourn.” Proverbs 29:2
4. “You’re trying to impose your morality on other people!”
Everyone in a democracy is voting for their beliefs that others don’t share.
As others have pointed out, people often object to Christians advocating for abortion restrictions, “You’re imposing your morality on the mother!” And that’s true. But when abortion is legalized, the MOTHER is (lethally) imposing HER morality on the baby.
The question isn’t WHETHER someone’s morality gets imposed on other people. The question is WHOSE morality gets imposed.
5. “That’s Christian Nationalism!”
99% of the time “Christian Nationalism” is a scare label whose subtext is, “You CAN’T advocate for your beliefs in the public square, but I CAN advocate for mine.”
As Jon Tyson has pointed out, voting and advocating for their beliefs is what everyone in a democracy does, but Christians are increasingly the only group in society who are shamed for doing so.
If someone accuses you of being a “Christian Nationalist”, usually respond, “Yep. I’m a Christian. And I love my nation.”
6. “You can’t legislate morality!”
Morality is the only thing that gets legislated. Every law that has ever existed “legislates a moral.” While it’s true that laws can’t make people moral, Christians should want laws that restrain ungodly immorality.
Martin Luther King Jr. once quipped: “It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.”
7. “Jesus didn’t focus on politics.”
There’s no way to read about Daniel, Esther, Joseph, Moses, Nehemiah, and John the Baptist and think Christians should avoid politics.
“But Jesus said ‘my kingdom is not of this world!’” Yes, and he also prayed his kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven. “But Jesus said to give to Caesar what’s Caesar’s and to God what’s God’s!” Yes, and Caesar bears the image of God; therefore, Caesar belongs to God.
Finally, as Os Guinness has pointed out, our civic context is different than Jesus’: “We are not under Roman rule. We are citizens of a Republic, and every citizen is responsible for the health and vitality of the Republic.”
8. We shouldn’t be “CULTURE WAR CHRISTIANS”
As Nathan Finnochio has pointed out, Europe exists because early Christians “engaged in the culture wars.” Europe resisted Islamic invasion because the Medieval Church “engaged in the culture wars.” The American Revolution happened because Presbyterians “engaged in the culture wars.” Chattel slavery was abolished and the Civil Rights movements happened because Christians like William Wilberforce and Martin Luther King Jr “engaged in the culture wars.”
We should be more interested in the future of the church, but we should also provide a cultural future for our children in which they aren’t surrounded by perversion, indoctrination, godlessness, opposition, and lawlessness.
9. “The gospel is neither Right nor Left…”
This statement made more sense in the past when the two political parties agreed on a destination, and just disagreed on how to get there.
But as uncomfortable as it is, we must increasingly acknowledge the two parties now desire radically different societal destinations.
While it’s TRUE “the gospel isn’t Right or Left”, the gospel IS about right and wrong. And honest Christians must acknowledge that while there ARE immoral leaders and corruption in both parties, there is currently more wrong in the policies of the Left than the policies of the Right…
- The unlimited murder of the unborn (abortion) as a “human right”
- The redefinition of marriage
- Cultural permeation of transgender ideology
- Biological men in women’s sports, bathrooms, locker rooms
- Legal protections for sex change surgeries for minors
- Teaching children perverse sex and gender ideology in public schools
- Pornographic books in public schools
- All of the above are assaults on the bedrock of a functioning society: nuclear families
- The legalization (and therefore popularization) of drug use
- Globalism
- Reduction in support of Israel
- Virtually all threats to religious liberty currently come from the Left
- Virtually all threats to free speech currently come from the Left
- Virtually all threats to parents’ rights currently come from the Left (there are already multiple progressive states in which a parents’ custody of their children is in jeopardy for failing to affirm a child’s transgender identity)
10. “Politics can’t save anybody”
From what?
While it’s very true that politics can’t save anyone from hell (there will be people in hell who were very passionate about “Judeo-Christian values”), politics can save a society from pulling hell up into cities, states, and nations.
11. “Both candidates are ungodly. Of the lesser of two evils, choose neither.”
Because there has never been a sinless candidate or perfect party, every election is a choice between two ‘evils.’ A vote for someone is not condoning everything they’ve done.
A vote is your power to pick the best available path forward.
Christians are called to be the “salt of the earth” (Matt 5:13). The purpose of salt is to SLOW DECAY. When voting, a Christian shouldn’t ask, “Is there a candidate that perfectly embodies my values?” A Christian should ask, “Which candidate’s policies are most likely to slow societal decay?”
30M Bible-believing Christians did not vote in the last presidential election. That election was decided by 42,000 votes.
Nobody but Jesus gets your heart.
But don’t get gaslit into not casting your vote.