Have you ever heard someone say that “the government should not legislate morality,” or invoke “separation of church and state” to suggest that religious beliefs should not influence political decisions?
In my last piece, I argued for tearing down the self-constructed mental barrier between one’s faith and political worldview. But the next question is how much the former should shape the latter. Most Christians will agree that their faith should impact at least the moral or social issues in politics — although there will always be a loud minority whose highest commandment remains “thou shalt not legislate morality.” Yet even these brothers and sisters, with their squishy appeals to modern secularism, argue for laws against the most morally repugnant sins. If asked to justify their moral outrage over murder or rape, I suspect many would cling to Scripture like a drowning man to a life preserver. My question to these believers is simple: Where is the line between the biblical truth your “moral clarity” permits us to legislate and the truth that would become, in your mind, an offense to democracy if written into law?
The truth is, there is no consistent line to draw here. Every person has a worldview — a system of morals that they hold to be objectively true for all people — and everyone applies those morals to politics. Religious people, and specifically Christians, seem to be held to an inconsistent standard where they are expected to separate these morals from their political views simply because the morals come from their religion. I would argue that, as the basis of our morality, Scripture applies to every category of political thought and should inform every belief Christians hold.
By this, I do not mean forcing Scripture to accommodate preexisting beliefs. I mean deconstructing our worldview and rebuilding it according to biblical truth, to the point that no belief is held by a person except that which they have derived from Scripture.
Broadly speaking, there are three categories of political issues: Social issues, economic issues, and foreign affairs. Social issues have to do with how a society implements morality into the law and are historically considered to be the most controversial due to their personal nature. Economic issues deal with regulation, taxes, trade, and markets. Foreign affairs are concerned with relationships with other nations, war, trade, and immigration.
Of course, these are not clean-cut categories, and an issue like illegal immigration covers all three. Still, the categories help organize the question of which political issues we can take a faith-based stance on.
It is common for Christians to base their social beliefs on Scripture, because it often speaks directly to most social issues such as abortion, homosexuality, or social justice.
Other social issues aren’t directly addressed, but Scripture still gives principles that can shape our views. Environmental policy is one example of this. We know from Scripture that humans have a duty to steward the earth (Gen. 1:26–28) and that this duty compels us to preserve its wellbeing and cultivate it (Gen. 2:15). But these verses only provide a general principle, they do not tell us how to vote on specific environmental legislation.
Finally, there are social issues that the Bible does not address. A good example here is education, where Scripture gives related principles, such as parental responsibility in raising children (Prov. 22:6), but it does not prescribe school models, funding levels, or even public education itself.
Social issues are the most debated because applying Scripture to them is complex and nuanced. But since Scripture clearly speaks on the issues in this category, when we make it our foundation, clarity on all necessary issues will follow.
The other two categories, economic issues and foreign affairs, are harder to evaluate scripturally — not because Scripture says much about them, but because it often says very little directly. Remember that, although the Bible is a political book because it provides moral clarity and teaches us how to live in society, it is not a governmental handbook and does not speak on topics that apply more to government entities than political individuals. Economic issues and foreign affairs are filled with these topics, and so there is not much written about them in Scripture.
In the coming months, I will examine what Scripture says about these categories and how Christians should think about them. Social issues may be the easiest place to see the connection between faith and politics, but they are far from the only place it exists.
— Charlie Phillips* is a member of Cities Church in Saint Paul, Minn. He studied Political Science and Bible at the University of Northwestern-St. Paul. Phillips is passionate about striving toward the truth of Scripture and Christ-centered politics. (*Name changed for professional reasons.)