Letter to the Editor

Christians and politics

Thursday, October 31, 2019

Dear Editor,

For decades now, one of the chief ends of leftists is to force out any concept of spirituality or recognition of a sovereign Creator from the public sector. They broadcast that any mention of God or faith in public is offensive and politically incorrect. The message they are sending is loud and clear: Christians need to box up and hide away their faith. Just look at Beto O’Rourke’s recent comments at a town hall on national television. Beto took the stage and proclaimed that any religious organization, church, or non-profit that does not conform to his views on morality and marriage should lose their tax exempt status.

Well, I for one am sick of being told that speaking Christian truths is blasphemous to progressive values. There is a concentrated effort going on in our culture telling Christians to divide their political beliefs from their faith. I think that is absurd. As Christians, we hold that God is the moral lawgiver of the universe. We cannot divorce our faith from our life, much less from our politics. To ask Christians to dispose of their beliefs is sheer arrogance, and reveals the true contempt that leftists hold for people of faith and the values and beliefs they hold.

Further, whenever a Christian voices a political view based on a religious belief, you can bet that leftists will quickly swarm and sound the alarm that the “barrier between church and state” is about to be destroyed or that the “religious right” is seeking to impose a theocracy. Aside from being a bad faith straw-man argument, it reveals a confusion over Christian belief as well.

As a Christian, I believe that God’s kingdom is not of this world. Christ’s message is that humans are to live faithfully in service to God and to one another, and to prepare for the coming of the New Creation. We are fortunate to live in a society where citizens are encouraged to have a stake in how their government is run. We as Christians have a moral duty to get involved to help create a more perfect union, to pursue justice, and to protect our God-given rights. We recognize that our help comes from the Lord, not from the government, and we believe in the law of God, not the folly of man.

This idea of a politically active, religious people dates back to our nation’s founding. President John Adams once stated “our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Adams is not asserting that the United States is a theocracy. Rather, he is saying that liberty is precious, and so it is up to the moral and religious convictions of the people to use that liberty responsibly, and for the betterment of their fellow man. The very idea of inalienable rights depends on the idea that our rights are granted to us by a just and righteous Creator, and no matter the machinations of man, these rights belong to all peoples.

Christians should not be ashamed of who they are or what they believe. We should not have to feel like our values and beliefs are any less relevant in today’s society because those beliefs might offend people or because not everyone holds them. Rather, we should use our God-given rights to get involved as citizens of this great nation and to advance the policies and ideas we think will help protect the liberty and prosperity of all citizens, believers and non-believers alike.

Eddy Justice,

Poplar Bluff

Republican candidate for Senate District 25