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Writer's pictureDon Stock

Which Turnip Best Aligns With This Peach?? The Reality of Political Parties and Biblical Truth.


Which Turnip Best Aligns With This Peach?? The Reality of Political Parties and Biblical Truth.

The Reality of Political Parties and Biblical Truth.


From the start, the purpose of this blog series has been to help disciples of Jesus apply Christ-centered, New Testament truth to politics in a system where we have a voice in our governance. Most don’t recognize it, but that last phrase, “where we have a voice in our governance,” is the bit that creates so much confusion, misunderstanding, and, frankly, error amongst Christians. Having that voice often paves the way for us to get our allegiances and contexts scrambled, creating gigantic problems. We’ll return to this subject shortly.

 

For the past several weeks, I’ve heard a similar sentiment repeated by many of my conservative, evangelical friends regarding the upcoming election and its intersection with faith. The statement in question is:

 

“I just vote for the party that most aligns with biblical principles.”

 

These days, anytime I hear people of different ages and from different places saying the same things at roughly the same time, it always catches my attention because it’s a good indication that they didn’t arrive at that idea themselves but, rather, heard that thing said by someone else in their media/social media circles, or from their favorite religious podcast and thought, “Yeah, that’s right!.” What makes that problematic is that in our current culture, many are drawing their conclusions about spiritual truth from social media, TV talking heads, and internet MEMEs rather than a deep knowledge of the scriptures enlightened by the Holy Spirit.

 

This sentiment, “I just try to vote for the party that most aligns with biblical principles,” is a great example.

 

At first blush, this idea seems totally reasonable and rational, doesn’t it? Unexamined, the idea could even be seen as noble. “Of course, isn’t it a given that we’d want the party we vote for to support ‘biblical principles’? What’s to argue about?” It seems so self-evident.

 

And that is the deep and abiding problem. As Dallas Willard reminds us “…the most dangerous ideas are those that are so common as to never be examined.”

 

For, when we stop to analyze it, we begin to identify some very wrong assumptions and blind spots that underpin this idea. If we look more deeply and with a heart open to the Holy Spirit, we begin to see how our own biases and allegiances to things like party or national ethos can easily influence our perspective and influence our decisions about what “biblical principles” are up for consideration and which ones are not.

 

As an avid gardener and one steeped in the concepts of experiential learning, I see spiritual parallels everywhere, and especially when I step through the garden gate. I find that a really good metaphor often does much more to bring clarity and understanding than a thousand words of explanation might. Which brings us to the subject of turnips.

 

In the world around us and in the Kingdom of God, the nature of the thing, the true essence rather than the appearance of a thing, is the part that’s truly most important. And what a thing is in its essence determines it utility and usefulness, regardless of what it might look like.

 

We, as Christians who live under a democratic form of government, routinely misconstrue both the scriptural role of government and a disciple’s relationship to government as the New Testament outlines it. Put succinctly, we think the role and ability of government is one thing when it’s another. We think it’s a peach, when it’s actually just a turnip.

 

According to Romans 13:1-5 and I Peter 2:13-16 the role of human government is to maintain order, restrain evil, punish wrongdoers, and commend those who do right. Its role is to act as God's servant on earth to uphold justice and protect citizens by enforcing laws against those who commit crimes.

 

What you won’t find anywhere in the New Testament is the mandate of government to impose morality through means of external human laws. In the scriptures, crime and punishment for wrongdoing on earth is the domain of government. Morality, that internal force that motivates us as humans to do what is right, is the domain of faith. The government, strictly speaking, couldn’t care less whether a person continually fantasizes about murder, or rape, or embezzlement, or arson so long as they don’t act on those fantasies. Faith, and particularly faith anchored in Jesus and His teachings, cares a great deal about the thoughts and intents of the heart because, according to Jesus, that is the source from which actions flow. (Luke 6:45)

 

And that is precisely why the notion of trying to force morality on human beings via political influence and laws imposed from the outside never works. The essence of the thing is incompatible with the goal. One may locate a turnip that looks remarkably like a peach. You might even endeavor to make a cobbler from it, but nobody would eat it because, in the end, it’s still a turnip.

 

But as Christians, we make EXACTLY this kind of mistake in our political engagement within a democratic governing structure. We believe that since our system of government allows us to have a voice, that automatically means God has laid on us a mandate to use government to enforce “God’s law” and impose “scriptural” morality on all of society.  

 

The glaring issue is that that mandate is not found in the New Testament scriptures. In fact, Paul is almost cavalier in his attitude toward the question of the morality or life choices of those outside the faith.

 

1 Corinthians 5:12 12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?

 

To be fair, I think this important delineation was easier for the early church to understand because they didn’t have a voice in their governance. In fact, they had no voice at all. Most were desperately poor, many were slaves, and virtually all suffered serious persecution. They lived in a context that drew very clear lines between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world and its social systems.  

 

The fact that we do have a voice in our governance serves as a very serious and seductive temptation that easily blurs those lines and moves us to use human means to further spiritual ends. It’s the trap that the church has fallen into since 325 AD when Constantine ended persecution and gave Christians legitimacy in the Roman Empire. Within 60 years, we went from being the persecuted to being the persecutors. I’ve written about much of this in others places, so I’ll leave this point there. If you’re interested in reading more on this subject, please check out my blog "I Changes My Mind About Mandating Morality."

 

The second significant issue with the mindset expressed in the declaration, “I just vote for the party that most aligns with biblical principles,” is that we are usually very selective and not at all thorough in our determination of what we consider to be the “biblical values” we think our preferred party aligns with. There are very important questions that we rarely stop to ask ourselves.

 

Questions like:

·       “Where am I drawing my idea of ‘biblical principles’ from? The Old Testament? The New Testament? The direct teachings of Jesus?

·       “Which specific principles am I choosing to focus on and prioritize, and why am I choosing those over, or to the exclusion of, others?”

·       “What violations of other ‘biblical principles’ am I ignoring in order to support a given party?

 

But when we begin to honestly and sincerely do consider these questions, things can get pretty uncomfortable. What we discover is that often, our list of ‘biblical principles’ is not something we’ve truly thought about or arrived at on our own at all. As mentioned earlier, it is most often the list that has been given to us and that we’ve been told are the important things by preachers, podcasts, and pundits. When do begin to analyze it, what we discover can be very unflattering.

 

True to the nature of the Fallen Self that dwells within each of us, we discover that the things that tend to make it onto the preferred ‘biblical principles’ list that we’re so passionate about also often turn out to be things that (a) don’t affect us or cost us anything (b) don’t threaten our comfort or our resources (c) lay a burden on others but require nothing of us (d) allow us to look down on and condemn others as somehow “less” or “sinful”, while (e) simultaneously allowing us to feel superior or righteous.

 

By contrast, the things that are often suspiciously absent from our preferred lists are things that (a) do affect us or cost us something (b) mean giving up our comfort or our resources (c) lay a burden on us, while lightening the burden of others (d) force us to accept the supreme command to love others while (e) pursuing humility and Christlikeness.

 

As a poignant example, from my firsthand experience, I can attest that it feels good to champion the fight against abortion. I know because I’ve been a Pro-Life advocate since I first came to Christ. It was part of the list I was given when I first engaged with the church. And I can concur that it feels so righteous to “stand up for the unborn” and to vote for “the sanctity of life.”

 

But when I analyzed it for myself, I had to admit that it was also ‘biblical principle’ that:

·       Didn’t affect me

·       Didn’t cost me anything

·       Didn’t threaten my comfort or my resources

·       Layed a burden on others that I was not involved in helping lift

·       And allowed me to look down on and condemn others as somehow “less” or “sinful”, while simultaneously allowing me to feel superior or righteous.

 

This has been true of most staunchly Pro-Life Christians and churches I’ve been associated with in my lifetime. We passionately voted against abortion on ‘theological grounds.’ But very few of us opened our homes in Jesus’ name to support and care for a single, pregnant teen. Even fewer of us were willing to commit our lives to adopting and raising one of those “unwanted” children. But we DID get a lot of self-righteous mileage and more than a little smug glee from recycling quips to one another, like “she had a ‘choice’ when she spread her legs!’”

 

But, this post isn’t about abortion.

 

It’s about being honest with ourselves about this idea that an earthly political party can “align” with biblical principles. The simple truth is they can’t. They’re turnips.

 

Regardless of which party one decides to align with and what list of ‘biblical principles’ we assert represents that party, making that assertion inevitably requires us to ignore, explain away, or somehow create a hierarchy for our list to "baptize" the party alignment. In a very real sense, voting for one list of biblical principles requires voting against another, for no party embodies all scriptural truth. They can’t. They’re turnips.

 

For nearly all my Christian life, I’ve voted Republican. I didn’t vote Republican because I thought about it deeply or, honestly, even paid much attention. I voted Republican because it was the Pro Life party. That’s the story for many, many Christians. Abortion was THE issue, and nothing else mattered.

 

And THAT is a supreme example of the phenomena I’m calling attention to.

 

Here are some simple facts.

1.     Abortion isn’t directly addressed in the Bible. The “sanctity of life” and the personhood of the unborn are inferred, most strongly from Psalm 139.

2.     Even though abortion was practiced in the Roman Empire, neither Jesus nor the balance of the New Testament mentions, let alone addresses, abortion.

 

By way of comparison, the Old Testament, Jesus, and the balance of the New Testament say volumes about:

1.     Caring for the poor: Deuteronomy 15:7, 11, Psalm 41:1, Proverbs 14:21, Proverbs 14:31, Proverbs 19:17, Matthew 25:34-36, Luke 14:12-14, Galatians 2:10, Ephesians 4:28, 1 Timothy 6:18, James 2:5, 14-17, and more.

2.     Justice for the oppressed: Psalm 9:9, Proverbs 14:31, Isaiah 1:17, Zechariah 7:10, Luke 4:18-19, Luke 11:46, Matthew 25: 41-46, and more.

 

This list could go on and on.

 

The point?

 

Voting for the Pro-Life ethos may have been the right thing (arguments about exceptions, etc aside) But, the uncomfortable truth is that voting for the Pro-Life position, which is not directly and specifically addressed in scripture, simultaneously meant voting against biblical principles that have an astounding amount of direct scriptural reference.  In many instances, while the Republican party’s policies were for the Pro-Life agenda, they were often decidedly against many programs that sought to address poverty (including child poverty), oppression, worker’s rights, and economic policies that reward greed and contribute to a widening income gap. The biblical condemnations against greed are voluminous, with Paul calling greed and covetousness “idolatry.”

 

Today we hear endless demonization of "immigrants," both legal and illegal, from the party that champions the Pro-Life stance. That party's presidential nominee promises to round up and deport millions of people. Christians cheer and agree. But what of the 'biblical principle' to care for and welcome the foreigner in your land as clearly taught in Leviticus 19:33-34, Deuteronomy 10:18-19, Zechariah 7:9, Numbers 15:16, Matthew 25:35, and Hebrews 13:2?

 

So, what does all this mean?

 

First, it means that, as disciples, we must stop fooling ourselves into thinking that earthbound systems and processes can be used to advance the Kingdom of God. They can’t. They’re turnips, not peaches.

 

Secondly, we must accept that no party embodies all scriptural principles and that, however we vote, we are inescapably voting both for and against truth. The only way to avoid this is to not engage in the political process at all, which, at times, I have done for conscience’s sake.

 

But thirdly and critically, it means that we need to be extremely thoughtful about whether our list embodies what Jesus says is most important.

 

In the end, for Jesus, it’s always people over policy.

 

He said.

 

Matthew 22

‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

 

Ultimately, that is what we’re called to.

 

 

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