Astronomy and Politics Through the Lens of Epistemology
How do We Know What We Know?
What is Our Method of Evaluating Truth?

So what do we do?

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It is now Time For Prayer and Bible Study and Discernment Before Voting

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To resolve what to do in this situation, we need to go back to the question of why Christians should even seek to influence their government at all - since this is the subject here.  The Bible is obviously the book we seek for such answers and wisdom.  Once we have that Biblical information, we can then go back and apply it to our dilemma and voting decision for or against Donald Trump.

Now, many evangelical teachers, preachers and evangelists argue that government involvement by believers or the church would dilute or compromise their preaching of the Great Commission mandated for everyone in Mathew 28:16-20. Of course, one might expect that reading of the text by any Roman citizen of the time.  Any Roman or group of believers trying to influence the policies of the Roman government would find their lives in serious danger.  Despite this danger and the environment in which scripture was written, we do have biblical principles throughout the Bible supporting such activity to defend Gospel preaching when it did become legal for Christians to do so. This despite the fact that many assume that this is not Biblically obvious.  So what about the well accepted truth that we should....

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....“NEVER MIX RELIGION AND POLITICS!”

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Needless to say, the Bible is our standard of moral reference, not unbiblical, secular expressions.  Of course scripture never says to vote or try to impact the Legislative or Executive branches of the Roman government because those rights, responsibilities and governmental divisions did not exist at that time!  However, the Judicial branch of the Roman government did exist, albeit in a crude form, but it was there.  So, note in that regard, when the Apostle Paul was falsely accused of a crime in Acts 22, he appealed to the earthly government of which he was a citizen when he responded to the Roman centurion “And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said to the centurion who stood by, 'Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman, and uncondemned?' " (Ac 22:25 nKJV).  From then on to the end of the book of Acts is a story of the events as Paul defends his rights as a Roman citizen and the rights of his faith, up through every layer of the Roman government.  He begins with this centurion, up to his commander, higher officials in the Roman government, eventually including Kings subordinate to the Roman emperor and finally to Cesar himself. In addition to preaching the Gospel, Paul did set out to impact his government to the point of death!

 

WHY SHOULD WE NOT BE DOING THAT TODAY?  What is all this I hear from evangelicals teachers and preachers that government or politics are not our primary calling. Of course, the Great Commission is our undisputed TOP priority.  But does a very secondary or tertiary priority for Christian political involvement mean that they are compromising or diluting the Gospel?  Paul certainly did not see it that way! Do Christians who INSIST on abstaining from government involvement think Paul sinned in this regard, OR that we should only influence our government through the courts only?  Think about it, our government gives us the task TODAY of choosing our representatives in the Legislative and Executive branches of our government, who then in turn choose our judges in the courts.  Will these advocates of political abstinence openly rebel against Paul’s example above and his admonition to, “Imitate me, just as I also [imitate] Christ“ 1 Cor 11:1, (see also 2 Thes. 3:7-9, 1 Cor 4:16 nKJV

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For this reason among others, Christian involvement in government is totally consistent with the governmental subjection Paul cited in Romans.  Paul said, “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves”. (Rom 13:1, 2 nKJV).  In this country, we are given the authority to choose our leaders, that is - if we are subject to our laws and constitution.

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The most common theological objection to this biblical reasoning is the fear that some might falsely conclude that government involvement is just as important or even more important than the Great Commission.  Is it possible for some to confuse their calling to the Great Commission with their responsibility to impact their government?  Absolutely, and some will make such a mistake. Of course, if we fail to teach scripture because someone might misunderstand, we should not preach ANYTHING because of the same reason.

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The Failure to Recognize Our Calling To Be Salt

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The failure here by most Evangelical preachers is the failure to consider the whole of the Word of God on this subject.”  One cannot place the Great Commission in a vacuum absent of other related and critical admonitions of the Messiah.  For example, "You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.” (Mat 5:13 nKJV).  What was salt symbolic of in the mind of a Jewish Jesus?  It was then used as a preservative as well as a purifying agent in scripture. "Do you not know that the LORD God of Israel gave the rule over Israel forever to David and his sons by a covenant of salt?" (2 Ch 13:5 nKJV).   In this example, salt is used to symbolize a “preservative” for the everlasting covenant with David.  Whereas, purification by salt is the purpose in this passage: “Then he went out to the source of the water, and cast in the salt there, and said, 'Thus says the LORD: '"I have healed this water; from it there shall be no more death or barrenness.'" 2 Ki 2:21 (nKJV).

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Yet both the salt of “purifying” evil and “preserving” that which is good are advanced by Paul as a responsibility of the government in Rom 13:3-4:

 

 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same.  For he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.(Rom 13:3,4 nKJV). 

 

But notice that the government is never cited as in any way promoting the Gospel or the Great Commission.  Yet acting as an agent of salt to preserving good and purifying that which is evil is something we should encourage in our government since Paul cites it as having that purpose.  After all we have the salty responsibility of choosing the men who make, enforce and judge our people assuming we are in subjection to the laws of our government.  If Paul had this perspective when it was illegal, why shouldn’t we when it is openly legal to do so?

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Now from the above Biblical discussion on being salt, one might ask, “how Paul’s Gospel preaching was in anyway separate and distinctive from being salt?”.  The answer is that Paul was doing two things simultaneously.  His first action after preaching to the crowd that then falsely accused him was to demand his rights as a Roman citizen when he said to the centurion, "Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman, and uncondemned?"  That was clearly not a reference to the Gospel or the Great Commission.  Rather, he was being salt by directly asserting his rights (respectfully) as a Roman citizen to defend and preserve that, which is good (the freedom to preach the Gospel).  In this case, he used his rights as a Roman citizen to enable him to preach the Gospel to government officials of progressively higher rank.   The act of being salt, by demanding his rights, cannot be separated from preaching the Gospel because one was used to support the other.  Yet both had to be employed to be effective.

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More importantly, Paul’s actions WERE NOT just to secure his rights to preach the Gospel in that particular and personal circumstance.  He could have secured his rights to continue his preaching and been released right there on the spot.  This was directly confirmed by King Agrippa when he said,  "This man might have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar." (Ac 26:32).  I believe that Paul appealing to Caesar was a deliberate act to expose the head of his government to the Gospel and its accompanying salt so that Rome would eventually preserve that which is good and purify that which is evil.  That is one reason why the standard Evangelical Gospel without salty involvement has so summarily failed in our culture and whose success has continued to decline in this country.

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Have you ever noticed, when you read the book of Acts, how when Paul is going through his various appeals to Rome, that the story suddenly ends just before he is to appeal to Caesar in Rome?  That is no accident.  Paul likely lost his life there at some point after his subsequent trials in Rome.  So do advocates of political abstinence think Paul died in an attempt to bring the Gospel message and its salt to his government What universe are these preachers from? What, pray tell, Bible are they reading?

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Yet, if we fail to be salt as Jesus commands, we will certainly retain our salvation, but we will surely be trampled under the foot of this society!

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Christians Trusting in the Government or the Constitution

 

A final assault by the political abstinence preachers is that if anyone were to preach a sermon on Biblical principles for voting (without endorsing candidates), they would be encouraging their congregation to trust in the Constitution or their government for salvation.  This is yet another case where the failure to teach people Biblically can lead to their making such a mistake.  We cannot fail to teach scripture because of the fear for such an error!   After all, was the Apostle Paul trusting in Roman law when he appealed his case to Caesar?  Just because it is possible for people to trust these elements of our government, does not mean that this is the only possible motive on their part.  Their trust should be in submission to God’s Word. On the other hand, we dare not make the mistake of cowering in our church pews in fear of the political boogeyman!

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Yet, for the Christian, the Great Commission is still by far and away the top priority for Christian activity.  Again, what Paul was doing in his appeal to the Roman government, besides preaching the Gospel, was being SALT in the Roman culture.  By my calculations, the salty impact Paul had on the Roman Government (besides the salvations) came roughly 255 years after Paul’s words were penned.  That was when “The Edict of Milan” was enacted by Rome in 313 AD, which guaranteed Roman Christian citizens the right to practice their faith without persecutions or molestation of any kind!

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Biblically Mixing Faith and Politics

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Now that we know that, we have the simultaneous responsibilities as Christians to both share the Gospel and to be salt in the face of this government, let’s turn our attention back to Donald Trump.  Keep in mind that Donald Trump is predominantly a populist, not necessarily a conservative.  A populist advocates whatever is popular at any given point of time.  Whatever is popular may or may not contain conservative, Jewish or Christian values.  Undeniably, Trump has advocated some policies consistent with those values.  However, just because some of Trump’s positions are consistent with conservative, Jewish or Christian values, does not therefore mean that all of his popular ideas are.

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Yet beside the establishment Republicans, there are a whole group of revolutionary Republicans that are not part of the “establishment” that everyone wants to throw out.  These revolutionaries had limited success because we currently have a liberal DICTATOR in the White House!  An additional reason is that these anti-establishment Republicans had sensationally poor Republican leadership.  (John Boehner and Mitch McConnell refused to let lower ranking Republicans vote on issues critical to religious voters).  The last thing the Church needs is to throw out the anti-establishment Republicans with the bath water, which is a risk because of so many newly registered SECULAR and uninformed Republican voters that Trump has brought in!

           

So, we now have an opportunity to study Trump’s positions to better assess whether or not he advocates policies consistent with Jewish or Christian values and positions or at least similar conservative positions and policies.  If we are going to consider voting for Trump in November (assuming the nomination), we need to evaluate him on a much more intensive level, both before the Republican Convention in mid-July and before the election on November 8th.  So, why put any further effort into studying Trump after my previous blog that detailed the Biblical dangers of authoritarian political leaders?

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I must insert here that in my opinion Trump, based on his behavior, is the worst candidate of the 17 originally running and the worst in my 69 years of experience.  However, Christians and Jews are faced with this as the only option to avoid further governance like we have been under for the last eight years, assuming Trump wins at the Republican convention.  However, the bottom line is scripture, not how we might feel about the predicament we are in, given Romans 13:1-7, but how can we, in good conscience, vote for Trump?  For the following reasons, I am not pre-judging this study that I will be blogging on in the future.  Consequence #1 below is the primary reason. 

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There are two possible consequences we should consider in our evaluation of a future Presidency.

 

Catastrophe #1

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At stake is the legal defense of the Church which is currently almost universally based on the U.S. Constitution.  A close friend and constitutional attorney explains the consequence of a Democratic victory in November.  If the Democratic Party, which is based on moral and legal relativism wins, our constitution will be devalued to the point that it will have no value in defending the Church, if it is not abandoned all together.  That is one danger he articulates so effectively.  If that happens, the legal and constitutional defenses the Churches will be left with in response to an increasingly hostile government would be a constitution that might be compared to a king with no clothes.  A Democratic victory in November, will guarantee that the US constitution will be at least devalued and updated permanently, as they so often say, to a living-breathing document.  That means we will only have moral and legal relativism which will leave churches and synagogues utterly defenseless to the imposition of a secular and Godless interference in Church ministries like the “Little Sisters of the Poor” Catholic charity.  (We are still under said threat since the court has sent the case back down to the lower courts for further litigation).  In addition, many other church ministries are still under the same threat in the courts.  After a Democratic victory and the judges they will appoint, the churches will have absolutely no remaining legal defenses under the Democrat’s evolving or "living” interpretation of the constitution.

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Catastrophe #2

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However, on the other hand, we have already been enduring an unconstitutional and dictatorial presidency for the last 8 years, which has already greatly degraded our founding document’s legal effectiveness.  So if Republicans elect a nominee who also acts as a dictator, it will set a precedent which will codify a bipartisan justification of a non-democratic Presidency with no regard for our Constitutional Republic.  In my last blog, I articulated the danger of a nominee with an authoritarian rule.  What is so astonishing to me is that so many evangelical and charismatic Christians, like mindless sheep, are endorsing an authoritarian personality without weighing and praying to possible consequences of putting that much power in the Presidency.  If Donald Trump does turn out to be an authoritarian president, it would undermine all future defenses for the Church and other religious conservatives when it comes to future Presidents not respectful of religious rights.  Christians in particular, cannot afford to be further drawn into secular governmental values in terms of their Biblical thinking regarding secular government (e.g., Romans 13:1-7).  Whose kingdom is our greater allegiance to anyway?

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A Cold Dose of Biblical Reality

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An important principle here is that when Paul identified the government (ruler) as “God’s minister to you for good” in his letter to the Romans (13:4) above, the Roman government was not a collection of Christian Sunday School teachers.  Yet he still emphatically describes them, in his letter to the Romans, as “God’s minister to you for good”.  Similarly, on that basis, Trump’s behavior that I railed against in my last blog, however repulsive to most Christians, does not Biblically disqualify him outright.  The main problem with Trump is his authoritarian and potential dictatorial nature, which I also did a detailed Bible study on in that blog.  Although, I am seeing small rays of hope that Trump is compromising in this area, before the Republican convention, this is where we should focus our real concern and is the reason for this continued Biblical study.