Echoes in Eternity

Doug Wilson has some very good thoughts on keeping Christ in one’s political activism.

I would therefore offer three bits of advice, encouragement and counsel to those Christians who are in the trenches of political activism.

First, be avowedly and openly Christian and evangelical. This falls under the heading of "bring the maps this time." Don't fight for "traditional values" or for the sentiments of your "faith community." Don't be a lobbyist for any kind of vanilla bleh. Go through a process that the secularists will attempt to describe as "radicalization." Connect everything to the Lord Jesus Christ. The secularists will see this as bloodthirsty fanaticism, and the only way to get them to shut up on that point would be to change your name to Abdullah and start shooting actual people. Then they would pipe right down and would stop rushing to judgment. But since you can't do that, just settle down and wait for the slanders.

Second, if it is pro-life activism or opposition to the ongoing normalization of sexual perversions, then keep on keeping on. Do this because it is the right testimony to offer a lost and decaying world. God has called you to be faithful, which may or may not be successful. As these things go, earthly success will only come if God grants a great reformation to the church, such that you get reinforcements. But whether He does that in our era or not, it is still the right thing to do. Faithfulness looks successful sometimes (Heb. 11: 33-34) and sometimes the first appearances don't make it look that way (Heb. 11:34-38). But the important thing is to be approved by God. He is the one who issues the only well done that ultimately matters (Matt. 25: 21, 23).

Third, if it is Christian activism outside those sorts of big E on the eye chart issues, then we need to study and learn. There are many areas where well-meaning Christians have gotten involved in politics in ways that are inconsistent with a Christian world and life view. Here are some areas where (in my view) we have almost as much to learn as the secularists do. We are still hunters and gatherers on these grasslands, and so we have no business telling anybody else how to build a city. We don't know. To be specific, I believe that evangelical Christians have a lot of growing up to do when it comes to the issues of economics (free grace means free markets), the difference between defensive and aggressive war (the latter of which is a great engine of avarice), the distinction between sins and crimes, and the illegitimacy of pillaging taxpayers to fund our versions of compassion. Many Christian activists sold their souls during the Bush years, and now that the wickedness of Obama is upon us, they are having trouble getting them back again. And it is hard to fight with any vigor when your soul is gone.