Should Christians Be Involved in Politics?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: Romans 13, Acts 5:29

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--should-christians-be-involved-in-politics
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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the short answer is yes but there are limits and first of all we need to understand that in in ancient times particularly the new testament that um believers did not have the opportunity we have today they lived under the roman empire which is a dictatorship they didn't have the right to vote they couldn't participate they couldn't help influence the laws and so there is not a direct impair comparison you don't see in the new testament some appeal to social action because first of all the focus is on the gospel and second of all it would be counterproductive even such things as slavery which is obviously evil and any fair reading of the new testament would demonstrate slaveries contrary to god's will in the book of philemon if you study it carefully and i've written a little uh a commentary called the message of colossians and philemon i argue that paul was actually arguing that this slave onesimus should be set free that was contrary to the gospel i use that as an illustration but nevertheless you don't have an appeal in the bible let's take up arms or let's vote and outlaw slavery because that option wasn't available and if they had tried to rebel they would have been crushed and then the gospel would have been crushed so it was counterproductive to do something they couldn't do didn't have an opportunity but that doesn't mean we should should not take advantage of the opportunities we have so if there's slavery in the world today we should speak against it because we have the opportunity to do so so i would argue that in our western democracies particularly we're talking about the us and canada but it would apply anywhere else in the world that if we have an opportunity to influence our government it's our right and i would even argue our responsibility as good citizens so we should first of all pray from our governmental leaders the new testament is very clear that we should we should be good citizens so we we find this in romans 13 we find this in first peter that we should pray for our government officials we should cooperate with the laws of the land in other words be good citizens but we should stand against evil and acts 5 29 we should obey god rather than men so we're not going to succumb to evil and not going to cooperate with sinful activities we're going to always do the will of god so and that indicates that if we have influence we should influence our government in a right way so definitely pray i think definitely we should vote and we can argue if we don't vote we're neglecting our responsibilities we're neglecting neglecting an opportunity to do something about the problems that we see and you know if god tells us to pray about something if there's an opportunity to act shouldn't we act to fulfill those prayers it's like when the lord says pray that god will send forth laborers to the harvest i think kind of the unstated assumption is well you could help fulfill that prayer request once you start praying you start realizing you know what i can be part of answering that prayer so you're praying for the government you're praying for justice you're praying for righteousness you ought to think well i can start fulfilling and be part of the answer i can go vote and that i think also could mean that we could get involved in political campaigns or even run for office hold office well you say is that even possible in the old testament we find many examples of godly people who had places in secular pagan government but they did not compromise their convictions so joseph esther daniel hannah and i and michelle and azariah also known as shadrach meshach and abednego they're pagan names so they even went by pagan names that they stayed true to their scriptural convictions in the new testament we have the ethiopian eunuch who is a treasurer for the ethiopian government for the queen that's a pretty high position also in the city of corinth we see in paul's epistles there was erastus who his title is variously translated but he was the director of public works or the city treasurer so he was a christian in a high political office in a major city likewise a cornelius was the captain of the italian ban he was in centurion so we do find people even the new testament who are christians who had governmental offices so it's not wrong to hold an office obviously you're going to have to be true to your convictions now i think sometimes uh pentecostals have shied away from government i think originally we felt like we're marginalized we had no ability or influence kind of like the new testament right but that's not really true and then also we felt like the lord was coming this world is not my home i'm just a passing through but i mean while we're passing through the old testament psalm says pray for the peace of jerusalem that was the capital city of of the israelites jeremiah says when you're in exile pray for the peace of the city where you're located so while you're there pray and by extension be involved to make it the best you can so i do believe there are some principles here that we can and should be involved and and some people will feel called or lit to work in city government or to work in political campaigns now i would say that as the church we should stand above political parties in other words we're trying to win souls so we don't want to say or do anything that either states or implies you have to belong to a certain political party to be a member of our church or you have to vote for a certain candidate to remember be a member of our church we want republicans democrats independents everybody to come now maybe their ideas will be changed as they become a disciple but we don't want to create barriers and in our discussion on social media we have a right to give our opinions but we should also think what is our responsibility as christians we're trying to win souls we're trying to extend influence so maybe we should moderate our views so even people that don't agree with us won't feel like they're kicked out or they're ostracized but they feel like we could agree to disagree but when it comes to the gospel we could respond to the gospel so i think we want to be careful there and of course under u.s law a church is not supposed to be involved directly in a political campaign although some especially on the liberal side seem to violate that nevertheless i think we should be law-abiding and but the primary reason is not to preserve our tax-exempt status although that is a factor the primary reason is because we want to position ourselves for all people to win all to the gospel and then as we preach and teach our moral values and our responsibility citizens we can expect probably people's voting patterns may well change but that's not our main goal our main goal is to disciple them uh to be followers of jesus christ so as the united pentecostal church international obviously we're not going to promote a political campaign we're not going to promote a party or a candidate we are going to speak on moral issues when it's feel it's important so we're going to speak pro-life against abortion we're going to speak um for religious freedom freedom of speech freedom a separation of church and state in the sense that the church i mean the state should not try to intrude and control the church although we do feel like the church should be able to have a voice but so but we do also have the naclc which is an endorsed organization of the upci and other apostolic organizations are participating the national apostolic christian leadership conference and that's the avenue we have the alliance which is a group of people organized not as a church but for policies that we agree on and the action network is where we talk to state legislators and government officials for policies and laws that we believe uh will defend religious freedom particularly so if you're interested in that i do believe there's a legitimate way for political involvements the naclc.org and you can go there and sign up as a local church or as an individual and the church can sign up to get benefits you automatically get benefits of the alliance defending freedom which is a conservative christian legal association that focuses on defending religious freedoms in our secular culture so i do believe there's some legitimate ways that we can be involved in the process but i think at the end the church does need to maintain an independent voice because here's some of the problems with politics you know most politicians are not going to reflect our values in every dimension and even in their personal lives so you know where there may be a politician who's committed adultery or who's committed to fornication or has divorced his first wife married a second wife without biblical justification so to us those are sins but if you had if you could only support politicians who didn't live in sin well that's going to eliminate every politician uh and likewise they're going to be politicians that might have 10 positions we agree with eight of them we don't disagree with two of them well it would depend on the position obviously but you know as a voter we have to decide which one is going to do the best job of you know protecting our religious freedom defending our nation uh fulfilling laws promoting economic economic opportunity and so we may have to choose someone we like better than the other or in some cases it might be the lesser of two evils and we're even reluctant to vote at all but if we don't vote that's a choice in itself so even not voting is a political choice so i would urge even if it's the lesser of two evils i would rather still have influence than not and if it's a politician where we don't agree with all the policies but if we agree with most of them or more of them i would still make that choice but we do have to understand that we live in a pluralistic society and we don't live in a theocracy it's not practical or advisable to try to enforce divine law on every aspect of society so there are some aspects of divine law like a law against murder yes the society agrees but the law against fornication society does not agree so i think it'd be mistaken to try to force that on a society that doesn't agree we just have to agree to disagree so i said all that to say that's why the church is separate so where we can agree in supporting certain laws we do but where we're in a pluralistic society that's not realistic or even the politicians that we prefer aren't going to follow it well that's why we're the church and so we're going to preach against fornication even if all the political parties say it's okay even if our uh recommended choice for a certain office is practicing fornication we don't agree with that but we can say well that's why we're the church that's why we're independent so we we keep a voice independent so we can say i agree with these policies but i disagree with what this politician politician has done or i disagree with what they've said so i don't feel like i have to depend defend every action or every statement of a certain politician in order to vote for them that's why their church says well i disagree you know i'm not going to go along with that we don't agree with that statement or that speech or that action or that vote but we still advise you to be part of the process and vote for people that will do the best job under the circumstances of our society i i do believe uh we should be involved at the end of the day of course our ultimate trust is not in politicians or laws or society our ultimate trust is always going to be in the lord and in the gospel