Sometimes I’ll come across a post by an atheist blogger about the need to keep religion out of politics, they want “policies based on scientific findings” and “reality-based government.” I’m not sure that science has come up with a solution for all of the problems we face and given the size of the spending bills passed in Congress, I’m not sure that the politicians have a grasp of reality.
Politicians can’t separate themselves from their worldview, it clouds everything they do. It’s the lens through which they view the world. A Christian politician would want to govern in such a way as to glorify God and all the issues that he faced would be examined in that light. How does the politician separate who he is from what he has been elected to do? How can he govern in such a way as to turn his back on everything that he knows? What principles would govern his actions? Societal norms? Those are based on the same Judaeo-Christian principles that the secularists would have him abandon.
It is not in the church’s best interest to give up our place in government. Christians should run for public office and govern to the glory of God — meaning they should do a good job and govern in an ethical manner. Christians should vote in each election because it is our civic duty to do so (rendering to Caesar in a democratic society could mean supporting the society by voting for the candidate that would do the best job). If we ceded that responsibility, we may not like the outcome of the election and would have only ourselves to blame if the state started to impose it’s will on us (limiting our rights as they do in England). Christians have to be vigilant to make sure our rights remain free of governmental restraints and to do that we need to make sure that our voice is heard along with all the other voices trying to shape this country. We have as much right to try to shape it in the image of Judaeo-Christian values as the secularist has to shape it in humanistic terms (which are generally pretty darn close to Judaeo-Christian values — I guess they don’t get it that they are living on the borrowed capital of Christian theism because they have no ethical system apart from our own).
Those who contend that politics should be separate from religion should try to envision what it would be like to govern apart from their principles then they might understand how impossible it is to separate religion and politics.