Now the speculators are pouring over the poll data and trying to figure out why the Democrats lost the election for the presidency as well as for several Senate and House seats. The thing that is jumping out at the analysts is when asked what motivated their vote, and given a list of broad choices, such as, "Iraq," "Terrorism," or "Health Care," Bush supporters chose "Moral Issues" in overwhelming numbers. Many have concluded that issues regarding homosexual marriage (so-called) motivated a bigoted right-wing response from the heartland of America. Although recent court decisions that have attempted to force "gay marriage" on an unwilling populace has certainly been a factor, I think the pundits are failing to see another factor at work in our culture.
Many within the church have taken on the task of addressing worldview issues. In recent decades, the church has absorbed a lot of the prevailing cultural philosophies so that humanism, existentialism and moral relativity have crept into the average Christian's thinking. Folks such as Gary DeMar, James Boice, R.C. Sproul, our friend Kenneth Gentry, and many others have been hard at work, ministering to the Church by instructing us on how to conform our thoughts to the Scriptures and "take every thought captive," to Christ.
It has been the case that many Christians would say things such as, "Well I think abortion is wrong, but I can't force my morality on others." But now we are recovering our clarity and beginning to differentiate between those moral issues that do, in fact, fall under the authority of the civil government (such as murder and other crimes, as God defines them, and regulating commerce), and those which fall under other governments, that is, the church (doctrine, the sacraments, congregational charity, Christian education), the family (education, child-raising, family charity), and an individual's self-government (governance of our thoughts, religions duties, passions and devotions). We are recovering our understanding of the "wall of separation between Church and State," of which Thomas Jefferson wrote.
The Christian understanding of civil government is one that limits the powers of government to those powers which God has granted them. All authority has been given to Christ, and He has delegated that authority into the various spheres of human government, all of whom must answer to Christ their King. To the civil governments He has given the authority and the responsibility to protect the innocent and punish the wrong-doers on both the individual and the national scales. The rights God has given individuals must be protected by the civil government from the tyranny of sinful man. These protections fall under three main categories, according to our founding documents: life, liberty, and prosperity.
So when government works to protect the rights of the people (not grant them rights, as God has already done that) they are exercising good government. When they deny rights God has granted or define new "rights" that are in contradiction to God's proscriptive will, then they are exercising wicked government.
Now armed with a more Biblical understanding of government, the church turns to evaluate their government and the political whims of the day. Gay "rights" and abortion are certainly issues. But also, there are moves to increase or decrease taxes, with most of those taxes being spent on projects that do not lawfully fall under the authority of civil governments. There is a war on terrorism and a war in Iraq with ideological components to them, as well as national protection issues. There is a move to nationalize health care, to increase education spending, to fundamentally change the income tax (or abolish it) and Social Security. All of these issues can now be evaluated in light of a broad philosophy of government that is informed by the Scriptures.
I would argue that today's Christians are beginning to look first at the broader picture--at basic philosophies of law and government, at the meaning of life, the nature of charitable giving and service, the nature and character of leadership and leaders. Only secondarily are they applying this philosophy to the individual issues. They are not voting the issues. They are voting for leaders. They are beginning to be not issue-driven voters, but philosophy-driven voters.
Sometimes we are faced with a list of choices and none of them quite fit. Perhaps we are asked to check the box that best describes our occupations. We just check off the one that seems closest, even if it's not quite right. Perhaps this is the dilemma in which many Christian voters found themselves this year when faced with a pollster asking them what motivated their votes. Was it the war? The economy? Health Care? Moral Issues? If I was motivated most not by individual issues, but by my overall understanding of a Biblical philosophy of government, (as I was) and was presented with such a list of alternatives, (as I was not), I might choose "moral issues." Mightn't you?
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