02 - Faith and Politics Do Mix! 2012

Prov. 29:2 “When the godly are in authority, the people rejoice. But when the wicked are in power, they groan.”

On a recent talk show someone commented that both candidates for president have made their faith a paramount issue in their political debates.

That commentator remarked, “What a person believes really shouldn’t matter because religion and politics don’t mix.”

But the Bible says otherwise.

It matters greatly who is elected to rule over us, to pass our laws, and to set the moral tone of our nation.

Christian ignorance and apathy toward politics can be a dangerous thing.

We should be very knowledgeable about who’s running, what they believe, and what kind of laws they will enact.

To be ignorant of these things can turn around and bite you.

ILLUS: In 1883 in Allentown, New Jersey, a wooden Indian—the kind that is seen in front of cigar stores—was placed on the ballot for Justice of the Peace.

The candidate was registered under the fictitious name of Abner Robbins.

When the ballots were counted, Abner the wooden Indian won over incumbent Sam Davis by 7 votes.

A similar thing happened in 1938.

The name Boston Curtis appeared on the ballot for Republican Committeeman from Wilton, Washington.

Actually, Boston Curtis was a mule.

The town’s mayor sponsored the animal to demonstrate that people know very little about the candidates.

He proved his point. The mule won!”

MORAL OF THE STORY: Ignorance and elections have consequences.

The Bible has always addressed many political issues.

Government was an issue that Prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel addressed all the time.

They spoke with kings, counseled them according to God’s Word, warned them of coming judgment, urged them against certain policies, and prayed with and for them.

It’s funny how we are just fine with singing patriotic hymns about America in church, but at the same time believe that politics and religion shouldn’t mix at election time.

THE PROBLEM with all this stems from the strong-held belief in SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE.

The belief that I as a preacher should not talk about political things,

That the church should remain neutral on political issues,

That we the church should enclose ourselves in a little bubble of spirituality, and the state should exist in its bubble of politics, and the two should not meet.

But Paul would not agree.

“The Christian brothers here with me greet you. All those who belong to Christ say hello, and most of all, those who live in Caesar’s house.” Phil 4:21-22

Why would those in “Caesar’s house”—the White House of Paul’s day, greet them unless they had been saved through Paul’s ministry?

Paul had infiltrated the government with the gospel!

During his brilliant career, Paul went before Festus, the Roman governor of Judea, Herod, the king of Judea, and finally appealed his case all the way to Nero, the insane Caesar and fierce persecutor of the church, who he personally faced and witnessed to about Christ.

Paul believed in taking the gospel straight to the political powers of his day.

So should we today!

So called “Separation of church and state” is found nowhere in the way America was founded.

History shows us that God, His Word, and His Son Jesus Christ were foundational parts of our government.

There’s a good reason that In God We Trust is on our currency…

And that the Pledge of Allegiance contains the phrase “One nation Under God”…

And that the Declaration of Independence speaks about the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.

First, let’s pop the myth of “separation of church and state.”

This phrase was originally coined in the U.S. from a private letter that Thomas Jefferson, our 3rd President, wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association.

The Baptists had been concerned, as the new American Government evolved, that their religious liberty might be compromised.

Jefferson assured them in his letter that he would keep the Government out of the Church—NOT the Church out of the Government.

Unfortunately, this phrase has since been hijacked by anti-church liberals, like the ACLU, in order to muzzle the godly influence of believers in the political arena.

The Founding Fathers of the United States never meant for the church’s influence to be kept out of the political process.

They never intended that the church would be silent about the burning, pivotal issues of the day.

Let me drop a little bomb today—if Christians and preachers and the church had not involved themselves in politics, America would not exist!

There would be no “land of the free” and “home of the brave.”

Let’s jump back in history for a moment:

The familiar group known as the Pilgrims was the first to arrive here.

They were Christians fleeing Europe in order to escape religious persecution.

They wanted a land where they could worship God freely.

The Pilgrims were followed to New England by the Puritans, who created bible-based commonwealths, or communities founded for the common good.

Those commonwealths practiced the same sort of representative government as their church governments.

Those governmental covenants became the foundation for our Constitution.

Catch that!

The way their churches were structured provided the blueprint for the representative government later enshrined in the Constitution!

America’s history is saturated with the influence of Christians and the Bible.

The city of New Haven, Connecticut and the state of Massachusetts were founded by Puritans.

Roger Williams founded the colony of Rhode Island based on the principle of freedom of conscience.

Pennsylvania was established by William Penn as a Quaker colony.

Maryland was a haven for Catholics that fled from Protestant England.

All but two of the first 108 universities founded in America were Christian.

This includes the first university, Harvard, where the student handbook listed the following as Rule #1:

“Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life, and therefore to lay Jesus Christ as the only foundation for our children to follow the moral principles of the Ten Commandments."

The Founding Fathers themselves envisioned a government that would promote and encourage Christianity.

In 1777, The Continental Congress voted to spend $300,000 to purchase bibles which were to be distributed throughout the 13 colonies!

And in 1782, the United States Congress declared,

“The Congress of the United States recommends and approves the Holy Bible for use in all schools.”

Do you see anywhere in this any notion at all of separation of church and state?

BLACK ROBED BRIGADE

In America’s beginning, thousands of colonial pastors consistently taught the principles of freedom and liberty from the pages of Scripture.

They thundered warnings from their pulpits about the dangers of governmental tyranny.

When the Revolutionary War finally broke out, the British government feared the influence of the pastors so much that they burned churches to the ground as a matter of policy.

As tension between the American colonies and England increased, so did the red hot sermons from America’s pulpits.

One preacher named Jonathan Mayhew delivered a sermon entitled, Resistance to Tyranny Is A Christian Duty.

It is considered one of the most influential sermons in American history.

In his message, he reasoned that resistance to tyranny was a "glorious" Christian duty.

His powerful message is credited with offering moral justification for political and military resistance against England’s tyranny.

Most ministers took the same position during the conflict with Britain.

After shots and blood were exchanged at Lexington and Concord in 1775, open rebellion and war with Britain became inescapable.

And so on January 27th, 1776, a Virginian Lutheran preacher named John Muhlenberg read to his congregation from Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8; stating that there is “a time for peace and a time for war.”

He concluded his sermon saying “Now is the time to fight!”

Muhlenberg stripped off his black robe at the pulpit and beneath it was the uniform of a Continental officer.

Pastor Muhlenberg became General Muhlenberg and he raised a regiment of volunteers, who became known as the Black Robe Brigade.

Many clergymen soon left their churches, picked up a musket, and headed for war.

The love of God and liberty were knitted together in their hearts and minds.

Separation of church and state?

The Slave Trade

Without the church’s involvement in politics, many of the great, redeeming victories of history would never have happened.

It was a Christian politician named William Wilberforce that applied Christian principles to government to abolish the evil slave trade in England.

William Wilberforce was elected to Parliament in 1780.

Five years later he was converted to Christ, partially through the ministry of John Newton—who wrote Amazing Grace—and who himself had once been a slave trader and then a minister in the Church of England.

Newton urged Wilberforce to investigate the slave trade and to consider whether he could fight for its abolition in Parliament.

Wilberforce concluded, "So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did its wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for the abolition. A trade founded in iniquity…must be abolished."

It took him 20 long years.

He was fiercely opposed by the slave traders, who had powerful allies in Parliament.

One man named Lord Melbourne complained about this “intrusion of religion into politics” saying,

"Things have come to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade public life.”

But with the help of Christians throughout England, Wilberforce eventually succeeded, and in 1807 Parliament voted to abolish the slave trade.

Thank God Wilberforce didn’t believe in “separation of church and state.”

We need more Wilberforces—Christians willing to engage in effective, sustained effort to challenge government toward a righteous path.

We as Christians have a responsibility of obedience to the government, but more than that we have a responsibility of allegiance to Christ.

Listen closely to these words of Jesus:

“Let me tell you why you are here. You are the salt of the earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage, trampled underfoot by men.”

“You’re the light of the world. God is not a secret to be kept…you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine!” (Matt.5:13, 14)

The church was not created to cower, bow, lurk in the shadows, or exist in a religious bubble.

Jesus made it clear:

Let your influence be felt in every nook and cranny of the world.

Salt the world with the taste of godliness.

Light up the world with the light of His love.

I close with this passage:

2 Tim. 1:6 “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 7 For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. 8 So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord…”

NEXT TIME: “The Power of One”