The following are quotes of Dr. John MacArthur’s biblical perspective of politics and the Church. These quotes are taken from Dr. MacArthur’s blog, Pulpit Magazine.
During the past twenty-five years, well-meaning Christians have founded a number of evangelical activist organizations and sunk millions of dollars into them in an effort to use the apparatus of politics—lobbying, legislation, demonstration, and boycott—to counteract the moral decline of American culture. They pour their energy and other resources into efforts to drum up a “Christian” political movement that will fight back against the prevailing anti-Christian culture. But is that a proper perspective? I believe not. America’s moral decline is a spiritual problem, not a political one, and its solution is the gospel, not partisan politics.
My point is not that Christians should remain totally uninvolved in politics or civic activities and causes. They ought to express their political beliefs in the voting booth, and it is appropriate to support legitimate measures designed to correct a glaring social or political wrong. There is certainly no prohibition on believers being directly involved in government as civil servants, as some notable examples in the Old and New Testaments illustrate. Complete noninvolvement would be contrary to what God’s Word says about doing good in society: “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Gal. 6:10; cf. Titus 3:1-2).
BUT…
The issue again is one of priority. The greatest temporal good we can accomplish through political involvement cannot compare to what the Lord can accomplish through us in the eternal work of His kingdom. He has called the church to be a kingdom of priests, not a kingdom of political activists. The apostle Peter instructs us, “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9).
God is not calling us to wage a culture war that would seek to transform our countries into “Christian nations.” To devote all, or even most, of our time, energy, money, and strategy to putting a façade of morality on the world or over our governmental and political institutions is to badly misunderstand our roles as Christians in a spiritually lost world.
In the truest sense, the moral, social, and political state of a people is irrelevant to the advance of the gospel. Jesus said that His kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36).
By means of faithful preaching and godly living, believers are to be the conscience of whatever nation they reside in. You can confront the culture not with the political and social activism of man’s wisdom, but with the spiritual power of God’s Word. Using temporal methods to promote legislative and judicial change, and resorting to external efforts of lobbying and intimidation to achieve some sort of “Christian morality” in society is not our calling—and has no eternal value. Only the gospel rescues sinners from sin, death, and hell.
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For the record, I agree with Dr. MacArthur on this issue. I believe that the purpose of the Church is the advancement of the spiritual kingdom of Christ that is now upon the earth, not any physical kingdom of any nation. Such passages of Scripture as that which are found in Romans 13 clearly teach that Christians have civic responsibilities, but that does not mean that the Church as an institution should be political.
Furthermore, I agree with the founding fathers of our great nation that the State should be seperated from the Church. I believe the State should feel the presence of the Church’s power as her members influence the political debate. But I do not think that the churches should endorse politicians. Why? Because the Church should never participate in the promotion or glory of Man. The Church’s only message is spiritual, not political. The Church’s only goal is the promotion of the glory of Christ.
I disagree with both the politics of Dispensational Zionism and the political activism of Christian Reconstructionism found among post-millenarians.
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Jason Robertson is a husband and a father and a pastor. He is dedicated to leading and equipping his the Church with God’s word and biblical theology for life ministry, using a combination of pastoral, church planting and evangelism experience. He holds a Master of Divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He is experienced in church planting, evangelism, missions, and the training of pastors and Bible teachers.
Jason has been preaching the gospel since 1985, serving the first ten years of ministry as a Southern Baptist itinerant evangelist out of Milldale Baptist Church in Zachary, LA which ordained him in 1993. He has preached in hundreds of churches in over 30 States and 4 countries. He planted churches in Siberia, Russia in the summers of 1993 and 1994. He founded Murrieta Valley Church in California, which he planted in cooperation with the SBC NAMB in 2001. He also teaches ministry students at California Baptist University.
You can hear his sermons and read his manuscripts on sermonaudio.com. Just follow the link to "sermons" at the top of this page.
But I thought that all you Theonomists were trying to make this into a Christain nation/government. Take Dominion!
Why not practice Godly living AND political activism? Since the vast majority of Christians, SBCer’s for example, are only at Church on Sundays the political activism wouldn’t necessarily take time away from the Church.
Isn’t spending some of your time working for the improvement of our culture better than simply participating in it?
Maybe the efforts of Christian activists are what God uses to bring some to saving faith in Him. I’d say that has eternal value. Wouldn’t you?
I would tend to agree with MacArthur. Taking the battle for our Christian values to the arena of public opinion is a losing battle. The things of God will remain foolishness to the lost unless they are brought out of the darkness by God’s grace. To that end, preaching the Word is a much more effective means than political activism. At best, we can only appeal pragmatically to unbelievers, spiritually they will remain unconvinced on issues like abortion and gay marriage. I would be hard pressed to attribute any genuine conversions to political activism; I would think that it was due to whatever degree of evangelism was included to the activity.
That being said, I think there is a place for activism in a Christian’s life. We should encourage each other to stay informed about issues we will be voting on, and appeal to friends and family to exercise their rights and vote according to the values of our faith. We should stand up for what we believe, because secular folks certainly will not. Nevertheless, this activity should fall far short of churches or church leaders becoming associated with or beholden to political parties, candidates, or organizations. We are here to spread the gospel, not to stump for some politician. The former will never shame us, the latter is not quite as certain.
Are people like James Dobson and those involved with Focus On The Family wasting their time? Have their efforts been completely futile as it relates to evangelism?
If God uses the actions and words of a political activist like Dobson to bring someone to a saving knowledge of Him it’s not a losing battle. If only 1 out of a billion are saved it’s worth it. Right?
That’s what I have always heard from the church; “We’ll do this, we’ll do that, we’ll do all this other stuff and if only ONE SOUL gets saved it will all have been worth it”. Is this no longer true?
By the way I am interested and participate in politics. I have even considered volunteering for our local Republican office. I believe we should vote, and vote our Christian views. Yet, the goal of these para-church organizations is not even biblical.
@Church Dog
“The issue again is one of priority. The greatest temporal good we can accomplish through political involvement cannot compare to what the Lord can accomplish through us in the eternal work of His kingdom.”
I guess we are not reading this the same way. I believe Dr. MacArthur is attacking the practice of elevating politics over evangelism. I take this to mean that trying to “Christianize” America through the passage of laws that are favorable to us nets us only negligible gain. Simply working to impose moral laws on unbelievers will do nothing to change their spiritual condition, which will continue to direct them towards immorality regardless of the law. We will never be able to bring about a Christian utopia through theocracy, and we are not commanded to seek after it. I think that the one person you speak of is brought to saving grace through the ministry of the Word by Dr. Dobson, not his political lobbying.
This is the stated mission of Focus On The Family:
“To cooperate with the Holy Spirit in disseminating the Gospel of Jesus Christ to as many people as possible, and, specifically, to accomplish that objective by helping to preserve traditional values and the institution of the family.”
You may be referring to other organizations whose goals are not biblical, if so disregard the previous quote. However, Dobson’s group is a definitely political force. What are your thoughts on their mission?
Christopher,
“Simply working to impose moral laws on unbelievers will do nothing to change their spiritual condition.”
I totally agree.
Jason I do agree with 99% of your statements or rather MacArthur’s statement but please do remember that not all post-millenialists are Christian Reconstructionists.
Thanks for the reminder. I do agree and am quite thankful for my post-millenarian brothers who aren’t CR.
I’m a little confused. How are post-mills NOT CR in some way? I mean, if a majority of the world’s population are Christians, they are saying the laws passed by governments are not going to be based on Biblical principles? Are they assuming that the people who are runnning society – passing laws, making judicial decisions, deciding policy, etc. – are going to be the 5% or less who are still operationally humanists/atheists?
I agree with Dr. MacArthur as well. You did make a mistake though Jason. Our founding fathers never included ‘separation of church and state’ in our documents. That came, as I’m sure you know, from a letter from Thomas Jefferson to a preacher who was concerned about the government and what it would mean to the various churches. I think it is important for orginazations like Focus on the Family to keep tabs on politicians, etc. But our focus (no pun intended – oh well I did mean to use the pun!) should be on spreading the Gospel.