You’ve heard me decry this idiocy before… and you’ll hear it again and again. I can’t stand the lack of rational thought that permeates nearly every half-arsed notion coming from the religious left (who are the perverted people-of-faith of the political left… same smell, different clothes). Taking money from citizens in order to turn around and “solve” societal problems in the name of “social justice” (read secular humanism) is about as far from Christ-following as prime rib is from motor oil.

I know Christians… even pastors… who have written off politics as a vehicle for positive, Scriptural change. They criticize previous generations of Christians who put their trust in certain leaders… and they have retreated into their own circles of influence at their community level (or even into their own small exclusive church circles – although they won’t admit that). How cute that the same emerging voices critical of previous churches who didn’t “engage the culture” are actually doing the same thing themselves. And how cute that they would actually CALL others to do the same with politics… although what they are really doing is trying to dissuade traditionally GOP-supporting Christians from supporting conservative candidates while supporting left-leaning pols out the other side of their mouth.

So… about politics… guess what boys and girls — politics is part of our culture. So guess what? We are called to be engaged in politics.

I’m not saying don’t be involved in your tighter circles of influence (I oculd say community but it’s been such a tortured, tired word lately devoid of real meaning). I’m not saying put your faith in political leaders rather than Jesus. What I’m saying is obey your calling to be engaged… and participate in the political process because that it obedient and ultimately effects us, our children, our culture and our ministries we support. This is common sense that most children know so I shouldn’t have to say it again. Even if it means that all you’re doing is being educated on the major political issues, reading your Bible (both red AND BLACK letters) to see where God stands on the issues, and then voting appropriately based on Scripture (which means you didn’t vote for Obama) then do that. At the VERY LEAST do that… because as a Christian it is your duty. It could be as simple as 1st Peter’s call to respect government, but there’s plenty of Scriptural support for intelligent political involvement as part of a Christ-followers holistic engagement in culture.

Apologetics.com is a great, great site that if I had my way I would force people to listen to (like an Obama speech to schoolchildren). They just had a wonderful podcast on this topic: Apologetics.com – Christianity, the Church, and Government

Why is it that many Christians who decry Christian political involvement (read Tony Campolo types) because power and politics are tools of Satan, then go on to argue for government solutions to global warming and health care? Do they really want Satan and his tools cooling our planet and running our health care? Perhaps a more balanced approach is needed.

Should Christians be involved in government? Isn’t Christ our hope not politics? Is any influence of Christian thought on the state a violation of the separation of church and state? In this episode of Apologetics.com radio, Dean Donald McConnell of Trinity Law School, Doug Eaton, and Lane Chaplin discuss several questions that pertain to the Christian’s role in government and the governments role in Christianity.

Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.

This year’s issue is poverty. Let’s be honest… poverty sucks. Nobody who’s in poverty wants to be there. So why is anyone in poverty? What’s the root cause of poverty? Can we do anything about it?

Talking about poverty in the United States seems a little like talking about electricity within the Amish community — we have it, but not much of it (relative to the world), and in seemingly different flavors and for different reasons. I’ve seen some poverty both in the US and in other countries… and frankly, our poverty appears lame by comparison. My wife, who volunteers in a local shelter and has also been to many more regions of the world than I have, has an even clearer perspective. My lineage comes from Armenia… a place with serious, serious poverty. My wife and I support a little girl in Bolivia through Compassion International. And there are of course many, many more places around the globe that are so poor it makes Western poverty look like the Hamptons. I guess it’s relative. Is it?

So how do we end poverty? Well… we don’t. For me as a Christ-follower I’m called to fight poverty, but not to END it. We’re NEVER going to end poverty. You can’t end poverty any more than you can end indigestion or greed. Poverty is the result of humanity’s fallen-ness and depravity. We are by nature very clever and slightly evil. Anyone who’s spent any time at a homeless shelter knows that some people, no matter how much wealth they’re given, will be impoverished again eventually.

Ok, so how do we fight poverty? And even more importantly for Christ-followers like me… how do we fight poverty in a way that glorifies God, rather than in a way that glorifies secular humanism. One of the best scriptural assessments I’ve found anywhere addressing this issue was this article here, titled The Cause and Cure of Poverty, written by John Armstrong for Mark Driscoll’s TheResurgence blog. My own attempt to directly word-tackle this issue would seem pathetic next to John’s article… so just read his! Seriously!

Some excerpts:

What causes poverty? The question presently plagues many serious Christian thinkers and leaders. The answers vary but the proposed solutions are the stuff of our political campaigns every four years. We can already hear the discussion from the various candidates for the presidency in 2008, both Republican and Democrat.

[...]

…Capitalism is deeply rooted in the Judeo-Christian moral code. (This is not to defend all that Adam Smith, the so-called father of modern capitalism, wrote since Smith made mistakes as any theorist will.) …Capitalism is not rooted in greed at all, as is falsely argued by numerous Christian activists today. …Capitalism, when it is rightly understood, is rooted in altruism. And it is fundamentally based upon creativity, the creativity of both service and wealth. …Wealth is good, something many pious Christians have a hard time appreciating.

[...]

Simply put, capitalism creates new wealth, it doesn’t simply capture it or steal it from others.

Think about the much-maligned Wal-Mart chain. Politicians, and the various critics of modern forms of American capitalism, routinely attack Wal-Mart even though their overall record as a company is generally one of helping create jobs, of providing goods at cheaper prices and of stimulating creative economic changes. Yes, mom and pop stores do suffer when Wal-Mart moves to town. But that is the nature of the system. Mom and pop will have to adjust. The spirit of freedom allows them to do exactly that if they become creative enough to work better within the free-market system.

[...]

Socialism always destroys personal freedoms by trying to plan for other lives through a central government system that watches out for you. (This is why President Reagan once quipped that the worst words you could ever hear were these: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you!”) Capitalism allows you to plan for yourself. It allows for creativity and enterprise. Furthermore, it encourages people to provide for others in order to express their creativity through goods and services. Greed is, in reality, inimical to capitalism. Greed drives the welfare state more than it does capitalism since greedy people want unearned rewards to be given to them by a benevolent government that levels the playing field. Such a system directly causes people to petition governments to solve their personal problems, and the bigger the government’s role becomes the worse the nightmare.

The problem with liberal economic state-based solutions is that they undermine this cycle of personal success and initiative. Capitalism allows even “the wretched of the earth” to succeed. Envy and greed create wars and revolutions. Witness the great twentieth century bloodbaths, most of which revolved around economic thoughts and the role of government in engineering material possession and seeking to level the playing field economically.

[...]

Many young Christians are being sold a bill of goods about the evils of capitalism by evangelical writers such as Ron Sider, Tony Campolo and Jim Wallis. The intentions of these men are generally good. They desire equality, which is good. They also hate injustice and racism. This is also very good. But the equality of means and income is not the basis of real freedom. Even lifting everyone out of poverty is not possible since poverty is rooted in much more than access to more money.

Indeed, it seems too many Christian folks are buying into a form of humanist socialism as a means to address society’s social justice issues. Their heart may be in the right place… but Christ tells us that WE (His followers) are the ones who are supposed to be doing that work IN HIS NAME, so that HE get’s the glory rather than some socialist system. So rather than pay higher taxes into an impersonal, godless system of idiotic wealth redistribution we should be supporting free markets and lower taxes so that not only is new wealth is created for all, but so we have more personal income to directly invest (both with our money and volunteer time) into Christ-honoring ministries that fight poverty and win souls.

Free market capitalism and lower taxation actually become a major part of the Christ-follower’s fight against poverty — surprise surprise.