Mixing Politics and Religion
Politics is the process by which we establish government. The word "politics" is derived from two words. The first, "poly", is a Latin word meaning many. The second, "tics", describes blood-sucking creatures. I’m kidding, of course, but -
In my many years of “hanging around” churches, I have noticed that there is one subject that seems to be off-limits. That subject is government. People sometimes still - wrongly - say that one should not mix politics and religion. When was the last time you heard a sermon on government? Have you heard a Bible school lesson lately on the matter of government?
This has not always been the case - - far from it!
Not so long ago, it was common, it was expected, that as an election approached, the minister should preach on government. Entrusted, as we have been, with electing our officials, churches thought it necessary that church members should be periodically reminded of God’s will for government.
I have a volume titled Political Sermons of the American Founding Era. (It is, by the way, published by Liberty Press of Indianapolis, Indiana. That publisher is a valuable historical resource for any good Christian American.) To whittle this volume down to a manageable size of only about 1500 pages, the editor had cut out hundreds of sermons that had been put into print. This volume contains sermons such as “Civil Magistrates Must Be Just, Ruling in the Fear of God”; “Scriptural Instructions to Civil Rulers”; “The Bible and the Sword”; “Divine Judgments Upon Tyrants”; and “A Sermon for the day of General Election.”
Just from these titles you can see that the subject of government has not always been off-limits in the church. The fact is that God has a plan for good government, and that plan is fairly clear if we apply ourselves to the scriptures to search it out.
Here we are in a general election year. What better time for an “election sermon”?
We are going to explore God’s plan for good government. Because of the neglect in this area, some of this might seem a bit surprising to many of you. I think we sometimes are a little too comfortable with our ignorance about this matter, so if what I say today really makes you angry - - great!
Maybe part of the reason why this topic has been off-limits has been because preachers were afraid they might make someone angry. I have always thought that if you never make anyone angry, you’re probably not speaking the whole truth. So ready or not, here we go . . .
I. Good Government Is God-Authorized Government
God has a rather nasty but necessary role for government.
That role is stated in Romans 12 and 13. You can get the picture by reading Rom. 12:19 and 13:4 & 5:
Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord . . . For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.
Under the Mosaic Law, someone who had done harm to a person was to be hunted down by the victim’s next-of-kin. Revenge was personal. According to the Apostle Paul, this situation is changed.
It is not the will of God that we take personal revenge on those who harm us. Instead, God has ordained that rulers, that is, government, be the agency of His wrath. Government is intended by God to be a wrathful, punishing, agency for those who inflict harm upon other people.
The need for all this stems from the fact that we live in a world corrupted by sin. While we all suffer from this corruption, even if we are believers, some give themselves over to it more than do others.
Imagine a world where there were no immediate negative consequences imposed for murder, rape, or theft. Actually, you don’t have to imagine it. Just think of the Los Angles riot of the early 90s. Paul make this clear when he says in 1 Tim 2:2 that we should pray for “all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.” Solomon makes the same point in the negative in Ecclesiastes 8:11: “When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong.”
We do our duty as Christian citizens when we encourage the government to do the job God has ordained for it - - to come down hard and heavy on people who inflict harm on the innocent.
Christians get squeamish about this sometimes because we think the Christian faith is only about love and forgiveness and not at all about wrath and punishment. But long before the Law of Moses, God spoke a timeless truth to Noah in Genesis 9:6 when He said, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.” Murder is the intentional taking of innocent life. Contrary to what some people think, it is not murder to take the life of a murderer, for the murderer is not innocent.
In 1989 Charles Mitroff was shot during a robbery at a bakery by Wilford Lee Berry. Only days earlier Mitroff had hired Berry as a handyman at the bakery. Berry was the first person to be executed in Ohio since 1963. Present outside the prison in Lucasville were death penalty opponents, who held candles during prayer vigils and sang, “Killing is not the way to healing.”
But execution is not designed to heal anything. It is part of the revenge God has willed on murderers. It is part of the wrath of God that is rightly expressed through good government as God has ordained it should be.
II. Good Government Is Limited Government
We live in a time and place where most people, including Christians, see few if any limitations on the proper role of government. If you doubt this, just try to think of something in our society in which governments have no part whatsoever. Governments now attempt to tell us what we can drink, what we can eat, where we can live, what we can build on our property, what we must do with nearly half of what we earn, how much water our toilet can use when flushing, how safe we must be, how many miles-per-gallon our car must have, whom we can hire to work for us, how much we must pay them, how much you have to pay for sugar, and the list goes on and on.
Not only does “big” government want to tell us about every detail of life, it wants to know about every detail of our lives. Witness “Census 2000.” Even if you got the “short” form (and only a bureaucrat could call that thing “short”) you were asked a lot of questions that are, quite frankly, nobody else’s business. If you got the long form you were asked even more questions that are nobody else’s business.
Besides being annoying and expensive (and it is both of those), big government has another problem: it is an insidious form of idolatry.
The first of the Ten Commandments says (Ex 20:3) "You shall have no other gods before me.” Because it has happened gradually, we have not always noticed this, but government stands in the place of God for many Americans today.
Consider some of the attributes of God: all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good, all-caring, all-providing, etc. Now think of how we look to the state as an all-powerful entity with only our best interests at heart which will take care of us no matter what the problem, providing for our every need. I have just described both God (correctly) and most people’s incorrect view of government.
This is nothing new, really. Throughout the ancient world, rulers were often declared to be “divine beings.” Remember also that the first empire-wide persecution of Christians by the Romans came around the middle of the third century when some Christians refused burn incense to the emperor and say, “Caesar is Lord.”
It requires authority to use force against people.
It is not something that can rightly be done at a whim, or even by a majority vote. If you dare to stand before people and say “Do this or we will kill you” you had better have the authority to do so. Keep in mind that everything that government commands is ultimately in the form “Do this or we will kill you!”
Such authority can come only from one source, and that source is God. As we saw earlier, God has authorized the government to take revenge on those who harm others. But He has granted no such authority to those who want to tell us for whom we can work, how much we should be paid, or how safe you must be, just to name a few categories.
Not everything is the proper domain of the government. Many matters are reserved to the family and the church.
There was a time in the Middle Ages when “the church” attempted to exceed its proper role by trying to dictate who could and could not serve in various offices of state. The Reformation attempted to fix this problem by confining the church to its proper role. Today the church is sometimes almost impotent. The reformation needed today is of the state, to reign it back into the role God intended for it. When the state becomes larger than God intended it to be, it has to crowd something else out. What has been crowded out is the family and the church.
If you don’t think this is happening right now, let me ask you a few questions.
Which institution receives more of your financial resources, the church or the state? When people get old enough that they need to be cared for by someone else, to whom do they typically turn, their family or the government?
If you want an example of governments attempting to do something they are not authorized or equipped to do, try this question: whose job is it to take care of children? In the Bible this is the job of parents. Our out-of-control government increasingly sees this as its role. Our government spends billions of dollars attempting to provide institutions that will take care of our children for us, that will attempt to be “parents” while we are away working to pay for too much government. Here is something that needs to be said: the state and its institutions are terrible parents, the government makes an abysmal mother or father. We cannot trifle with God’s order without reaping the consequences, both now and in eternity. God has ordained parents, not the state, to raise children. Think for a moment with me now, if you institutionalize your children when they are young, what do you think they will do with you when you are old?
Big government is idolatry. Good government is limited government.
III. Good Government Is Just Government
Part of the problem with big government is that it cannot possibly be just. You see, justice requires that we keep God’s commandments. When I say “we” I mean everybody, including government.
Justice is the condition in which everyone gets what he deserves. Or, to put it another way, justice is an arrangement of things whereby people get what they have coming to them. These “what they have coming” things can be goods or ills, so to speak.
The Bible makes it clear that we must respect innocent people and their possessions. Imbedded right there in “The Big Ten” of commandments in the Bible we find: do not murder, do not steal, and (just to make sure we don’t try to slide through any imagined loopholes on the others) don’t even covet your neighbor’s property.
Now I come to the part that is especially hard for addicts of our “great provider” government to hear, but it is true nonetheless. Big government cannot be just government because big government’s main business is passing out goodies to everyone, and big government can only get the goodies it gives by taking those goodies from innocent people.
We have the very strange notion today that if we have a referendum, if we or our representatives vote for something that is unjust, that makes it OK. But this is muddled, unGodly, unethical thinking. Murder does not become just simply because the Supreme Court of the United States says so. Theft is not justified even when the Congress of the United States decides to take money from someone who has earned it and transfers it to someone who has not.
Let’s be more specific now with some examples.
Murder is the intentional taking of the life of an innocent person. While the Supreme Court might decide that it doesn’t matter in the case of the pre-born, females, red-heads, or those with IQs below 90, the commandment stands. In that case, we don’t need a new commandment or a new understanding of the commandment - - we need a new Supreme Court!
Theft is taking, by force or by stealth, property that is not yours.
Some people find taxes confusing — not just the forms (of course those are confusing!) but the concept of taxation itself. But it does not have to be confusing because we have a word on that matter from God through the Apostle Paul, who said in Romans 13:6 “This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing.” We owe a debt to those who give their lives to that sometimes nasty role we talked about earlier of being “agents of God’s wrath.”
But when Congresses and Legislatures decide to take 40% of what you make and dole it out to your fellow citizens, minus a 60% handling fee, that is not government. That is nothing more than legalized theft! In 2004 the average taxpayer had to work until July 9th to pay for the total cost of all government. When our legislators decide to violate the eighth commandment (you shall not steal), we don’t need a new commandment - - we need new, god-fearing legislators!
Conclusion:
I am very afraid that far too many Christians have avoided this matter for much too long. It doesn’t take much time to vote and to write a letter now and then to your various representatives. According to the polls, a large percentage of people eligible to vote claim to be Christians. But if you stick your head outside the front door of this building and look not all that far up and down the highway, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that either all those so-called Christians are very quiet, or they just don’t know what to say about government because they don’t understand what the Bible teaches.
Once again in the year 2004 we will have a general election in this country. Christians could have a lot to say about where our nation will go in the 21st century. We could also continue to do just what we have done in these last few decades. That is, we could let the government drift further and further from the purpose for which God authorized it, allow it to grow until it consumes everything around it like a giant cancer, and allow it in this process to continue to be the origin of a multitude of injustices.
As we have seen today, good government must pursue the purpose for which God has authorized it, it must be kept within its proper limits, and it must be an upholder of justice. Government that strays from these principles is not good, it is not of God. If the force behind government is not God there is another force which remains at work in this world - - and it is not very hard to see his hand in many actions of government today.
So there you have a very early 21st century edition of the “election sermon.” While there is a lot more to be said about this matter, I hope this has been enough to stimulate your thinking on the subject. I hope that in this election year, you will study God’s word in regard to government, acquaint yourself with candidates and issues, and proudly mix your religion with your politics. You should know that the pure Christian religion does the same thing to politics that Tide does to the laundry - - it gets it clean!
