The Difference Between Conservative and Christian Civil Rulers
By Buddy Hanson The Covenant News ~ September 24, 2009
At any moment we are either imaging Christ (keeping His laws), or Satan (breaking Christ's laws by living according to a different set of rules). For a legislator, the thought of approaching his duties from an exclusively Christian perspective (imaging Christ) may seem to be an overwhelming task. And well it would be without the Creator God's help. The thought of having the Creator God in your corner, watching over you and directing your every move through His revealed Word should more than offset any "peer pressure" to image Satan. The difference it makes in being a Christian is that we have God guiding us with absolute truths on how to live, work, play, raise our children, and self-govern ourselves, as He blesses our obedience!
How can we expect to improve on God's will by living according to our ideas?
Since the Triune God has brought us out of darkness of our self-invented truth and into the light of His revealed wisdom, why are we more concerned about how people will respond to His truth, than we are about how He will respond to our compromising His truth? There is no biblical warrant for religious pluralism!
Those who say that one's religious beliefs shouldn't be imposed on others, and that "all roads lead to heaven," are only admitting that in their mind, they have elevated themselves to be a mini-god, as they determine the ethics by which they and everyone else should live. This, of course, would also mean that they are also in complete control of what happens to them after they leave this earth, which should cause them more than a little concern.
Another concern for the non-Christian civil ruler (whether he is liberal or conservative) is that since he dismisses the validity of absolute truth, he can't offer any absolute proof that any of his proposed legislation will work. For example, conservative legislators commonly uphold the second table of God's Law (commandments 5-10: honor parents, don't kill, cheat, steal, lie, or covet), yet they don't cite the first table (commandments 1-4; God's authority) as their reason for believing in those ethics. So, what this means is that their legislative platform is based upon their conservative man-centered ideas, rather than their liberal opponent's man-centered ideas.
What we, as Christians, must understand is that as long as we approach our cultural issues with man's ideas, we will get man's results. We cannot hope to achieve God's results, if we leave His prescriptions out of our cultural formula!
The ultimate question is "Under which ideas shall we live...true or false ones?" To compromise with the proponents of false ideas is to agree that society's problems are not inside us (a sinful heart), but are outside us (bad family, bad environment, bad education). Such a position leads to dealing only with the sumptoms of what ills society. The results are:
more civil government programs
higher taxes
the continuation of culture's problems
When our civil rulers disregard and disrespect God's directions for governing, they are "held in derision" by Christ and "laughed at" by Him. (Psalm 2:4) This is why King David counsels them to "kiss the Son, lest He be angry; and in His anger they perish from the way." (Psalm 2:12) This is also the message we find in the Book of Hosea, where the prophet quotes Jehovah:
O Israel, you have destroyed yourself, but in Me is your help. I will be your king; where is any other that may save you in all your cities? And your judges of whom you said, "Give me a king and princes?" Hosea 13:9-10
17th century Scottish Pastor Richard Cameron comments on Hosea's message:
If you will have Me to help you, you must take Me to be your king, not only to be your prophet and priest, but to be your king to bear rule over you, and in you, and to defend you...but those who will not take him to be their king shall have no help from Him. Richard Cameron, Sermons in the Times of Persecution in Scotland, (Tentmaker Publications [1880], 2003), p.407
Even though America is not a monarchy, and we don't have 'kings,' Solomon's meaning refers to any civil ruler. From a biblical prspective, Christian civil rulers serve their communities by conforming their legislation to God's ethics. (Deut.17:18-19; II Kings 23:1-3)
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. II Timothy 2:15
In order for 21st century American Christians to prevent our country
from becoming a third-world country, we must recognize that we have
lived our way into our current cultural demise, and the only way to
correct it, with God's grace, is to live our way out of it according
to His rules. To place our hope in conservative non-Christian
legislation to solve our problems is to tilt at windmills. We profess
that God's Word is true, and it is high time that we prove our
convictions by voting for legislators who govern exclusively according
to God's rules.
Next week's topic is, "Turning Our Culture Rightside Up."
Buddy Hanson is President of the Christian Policy Network and Director
of the Christian Worldview Resources Center and has written several
books on the necessity of applying one's faith to everyday situations,
circumstances and decision-making.