Jesus and Politics

If you were to name two things that don’t mix, you would probably say religion and politics. However much of the Bible has to do with laws and policies. Particularly God’s laws and policies. But it also instructs us what to do when human laws contradict God’s laws. In the Old Testament, God gave the Israelites 613 laws because the Israelites had been slaves for over 400 years and now they had to govern themselves. Those laws govern anything any nation will ever need; education, economics, immigration, you name it, it’s there.

So, you could say that God established a complete civil government for the Israelites. Faith and religion absolutely can go hand in hand. In America, the First Amendment was put in place for a reason. However, politics has been pushed out of the Church because of the concept of separation between Church and State. But it has been deceptively twisted.

In 1802 when Thomas Jefferson was president, he explained to the Baptist Convention the protective authority of the First Amendment. He explained that government intrusion into religion is limited by the First Amendment. It’s there to protect the church from the government, not the government from the church. In 1954, the Johnson Amendment prohibited any 501c3 from participating in election activity. It intimidated pastors from speaking out for fear of losing their tax exemption status. This was a true violation of the separation of church and state because the state put pressure on pastors not to say anything that could be construed as political.

It is often said elections have consequences and that is true. As Christians, we need to vote for the most biblical policies that we can find. While the church isn’t becoming more political, political issues are becoming more spiritual. As good stewards of what God has given us, we have a moral obligation to make our voices heard.