The Scandal of Evangelical Politics

I picked up this book in the library last week, along with "Jesus Is Not A Republican." Finished that book, and it was...interesting, to say the least.

The Scandal of Evangelical Politics is written by Ron Sider, who also wrote one of my favorite books, called Rich Christians In An Age Of Hunger. This book was one of the beginning points to my interest in fighting human trafficking.

Anyway, I have only read the first chapter of Sider's book, but I thought that this part of the book was very interesting.

Evangelical pronouncements on the role of government are often contradictory. Sometimes when attacking government measures they dislike, evangelical voices use libertarian arguments that forbid almost all government programs to help the poor. ("Helping the poor is a task for individuals and churches, not the government. Government should provide a legal framework, fair courts, and police protection but then leave almost everything else to the free choice of individuals.") But when the issue changes from the poor to the family, the definition of marriage, abortion, or pornography, the same people quickly abandon libertarian arguments that maximize individual freedom. Instead they push vigorously for legislation that involves substantial government restriction of individual choices. It is possible that there are valid intellectual arguments for adopting libertarian arguments in the first case and nonlibertarian in the second. But a careful argument would have to be made. Without such argument, flipping from libertarian to nonlibertarian arguments looks confused and superficial.

Interesting. But then he goes on in the next paragraph, which I find even more interesting:

Or consider the agenda of many Christian political movements. One sees a great deal on abortion, euthanasia and the family. But hardly ever do they push for public policy to combat racism, protect the creation, or empower the poor. If it is the case that the Bible says that God cares both about the family and the poor, both about sanctity of human life and racial justice and creation, then should not evangelical political movements be promoting all these things? Does not a one-sided focus on just the issues that happen to be the favored ones of either the left or the right suggest that one's political agenda is shaped more by secular ideology than careful biblical, theological reflection?

It is because of this extreme narrow focus on political and social issues that makes me (and a bunch of other Christians) wary (and weary) of the evangelical political movement. After the scandal with Ted Haggard, there was another pastor who was chosen to be the head of the National Evangelical Association (of which Haggard was the president before) but decided to not be involved in the association after he tried unsuccessfully to get the NEA to look beyond just abortion and homosexuality as political issues and focus more on others, such as poverty. (Interestingly, this pastor writes one of the recommendations on the back of Sider's book.)

I have mentioned several times in my blog that I'm not a real political person. Part of it has to do with political ideologies being shoved in my face in college; part of it is due to my frustration with the American political system. Another part of me feels that the early Church was pretty much unconcerned about the political system of their day; their business was about the Kingdom of God, not the kingdom of the Roman Empire - so why should today be different? However, if there was a group of like-minded Christians who want to see the evangelical political platform expand to a more fully biblical approach and had the ability to make it happen, I would probably jump on board with both feet.