Yesterday’s Los Angeles Times had an interesting article about evangelicals and politics. The article talked about a small but growing movement of evangelical Christians who no longer want to be defined by gay marriage and abortion; instead, they are talking about global warming and affordable housing, about fewer tax cuts for the rich and more food stamps for the poor. Their goal: to get political leaders to do what Christian morals teach. The National Assn. of Evangelicals, based in Colorado Springs, Colo., is urging its 30 million members to pursue a “biblically balanced agenda” — by fighting poverty as well as pornography, protecting the environment as well as embryos, promoting good government as well as the Gospel.
This bothers me greatly. Here’s why.
In the middle-east, what we are fighting are governments that impose a single set of religious morals on their people, irrespective of their people’s wishes. We feel that the governments should be freely elected, and allow all religious minorities to hold and practice their beliefs. On the surface, this is all grand and good. But… our government turns around and then try to impose a set of religious morals on its people. These are supposedly better morals because they are Christian ones. But they are imposing religion on the people. If it is wrong in the middle-east, it is even more wrong here, because the constitution prohibits it.
We should not have the government imposing morals on us, whether we agree with them or not. Act for what is good for our nation and the world in the long run. But don’t do something just because Jesus, Mohammad, Buddah, Pat, or Dubaldie said it.
This isn’t the only hypocracy we are seeing. Look at the Cindy Sheehan incident at the State of the Union. Now, I don’t fully agree with the women. But why, when she wears a message shirt, is she removed and arrested; when the wife of a Bush supporter wears a shirt, she is only removed. Both should be treated the same (and, by the way, it should be perfectly legal to wear a message shirt to congress–active protests are something else entirely).