I have been thinking about what the most important issue should be for us as Believers to consider for this upcoming election. There are a lot of issues that are in our face right now, but what is the MOST important one to consider? What would the LORD have us do, or more bluntly, how should we vote (I’m saying in general, not so much with respect to a person but with respect to ideologies)?
I’ve heard someone say that for the 2016 election, a Jesus loving believer prioritized gun control. That was the topic that was preeminent in his mind and led to the party he was voting for. For the current 2020 election, I’m sure there will be some who are sympathetic to Black Lives Matter because they believe they are fighting against racism and police brutality. Still others have hearts that yearn to help the marginalized illegal immigrant population. And again, I can pretty much guarantee that these aren’t just secular people with no relationship with Christ. They are very much professing Believers, our brothers and sisters in Christ.
So which one is it? Well, from what I can tell from God’s Word, the LORD loves life. He created life. And He hates the murder of the unborn. Over 50 million babies have been snuffed out in the United States on our watch since the Roe v Wade decision in 1973. And that matters. A heck of a lot. Innocent babies that can’t defend themselves, can’t even speak for themselves, are being killed at insane rates; and we’ve done little to stop it. Or at least not enough. It’s gone from “safe and rare” to “for whatever reason at whatever time.” Heart. Breaking.
But the thing is, abortion is not always the top priority for many Believers. I have wracked my brain to figure out why. And then it dawned on me. We have accepted an “anemic” gospel. Something has been missing (or minimally spoken about) in many Sunday sermons across the nation. We know we are to love our neighbor. We know we are to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly (Micah 6:8). We know we are to have courage in the face of evil. We know all sorts of things that have zero political leanings. I mean, it makes sense, right? Who wants to create division? Shouldn’t we be focusing on what we have in common rather than what drives us apart? And for the most part, I’d say that I wholeheartedly agree with that. But the most important topic of our time, which I would argue stems from a basic biblical understanding of family, is avoided. Why? I believe it’s so as not to be perceived as politically divisive or to be offensive.
The problem with this thinking is that when we aren’t taught biblically derived definitions about the basics of, for example, family (and what that looks like in our culture) from the church, where are people going to turn? I would guess that most would turn to the culture, which much more often than not, won’t be professing a biblical worldview. The world glorifies self-gratification, self-autonomy, and independence. The Bible teaches dying to self, prioritizing others above ourselves, and dependence on Christ.
Along with these biblical truths not being fully addressed, the redefinition of sympathy/empathy (sometimes referred to as love), has exacerbated the problem. Obviously depending on the worldview lens you are looking through, we will come to extremely different conclusions on how these play out. This further causes unease to affirm difficult and self-sacrificing truths in a world that prioritizes self-assertion and self-love.
From a biblical worldview, the world is approached with sympathy based on impending judgment for those who do not know or accept (yet) the gospel of Jesus. Ray Comfort is an incredible example for us. He shows great sympathy to strangers by approaching them with the 10 commandments to point out how we all fall short and are in need of a Savior. Sometimes it’s well-received, other times it isn’t. That’s not really the point. The point is that biblical sympathy towards others drives Comfort to expose the depravity in his fellow man which thereby drives them to Christ and (hopefully) to accept the good news, which is our only source of hope and salvation.
From a secular worldview, sympathy embraces each one of us as victims of systems, or other people, or even of ourselves, and removes or disregards all responsibility for “falling short.” Essentially, everything is relative and that’s OK. In other words, whatever may cause us to have a conflict about moral issues such as in the example above, violating the 10 commandments, the assumption is that people just couldn’t help it. Or it’s OK for them even though we may not have chosen to do that; they had extenuating circumstances. We must empathize with their situation and remember that Jesus forgives us and He loves us. He will understand. Therefore so should we.
So it’s sympathy, yes, but with a twist. And that “twist” the church has not done such a hot job addressing. Obviously relativism is a much easier pill to swallow than biblical truth, but the results of relativism are profound as we can all attest to. And since the definition of sympathy has been so distorted in the world, this has affected the family unit to be redefined and/or accepted when it’s avoidably broken and/or twisted. Equally, if not more detrimental within our society, the blessing of children has been marginalized at best, and at worst seen as a burden to relieve ourselves of. Thus the acquiescence on the abortion issue. If only these two topics were addressed appropriately from the church for the last 40+ years, we would have a completely different nation.
At the end of the day, more than anything, we need revival. People won’t change unless their hearts are changed. And we desperately need the Word of God to be unabashedly preached to Believers’ parched souls. We can’t know what we’ve minimally, if ever, been taught.
These elections will have tremendous consequences. Again, it’s not as much about a person really, but an ideology. How can we, as the body of Christ, continue to stand by while hundreds of babies are killed daily in the United States? This should be the biblical justice issue of our day. Those babies that were killed in the womb deserve justice and those mothers need biblical sympathy (i.e. the truth of the gospel). The future unborn deserve our protection. If that’s not the most important political AND biblical issue there is, I don’t know what is. And if as God’s people, we don’t do and say what we need to, who will?
Can I hear an Amen?
