Warning: Some Thought Required

People make an incorrect assumption in the Evangelical ghetto today, that their subculture is Biblical culture. That is quite often not the case. For example, just because a singer, painter, or novelist is Christian, it does not make their art Biblical or even true. Non-Christian artists are capable of making truthful art. More importantly, there are believing artists, creating good art from a Christian perspective, who are rejected by the sub-culture because they have not chosen the Evangelical ghetto industry to disseminate their work. (U2 and J.K. Rowling are just two examples.)

The danger is that people inside the subculture begin to equate their culture with Biblical truth and fail to recognize any other cultural expression of Christianity. They then begin to do things like enter politics as a block and things get scary.

Christians should be involved in civic responsibility. They should learn about the issues and vote their conscience. They just shouldn’t become cattle and follow the self-designated “Christian” political leadership. How does it stand to reason that just because a candidate belongs to the same denomination as you, they will believe the same things as you when it comes to politics? For that matter, would you want someone who has immersed themselves in the Evangelical sub-culture in charge of the nation and representing it to the world? If someone has a history of swallowing hook-line-and-sinker whatever the cultural leadership preaches as Biblical, instead of actually studying the Bible for truth, how much should his or her judgment be trusted?

It must be remembered that many well-intentioned religious leaders have made some pretty poor judgments when it comes to politics. Some of the leadership of the World Baptist Alliance when it met in Germany in 1934 saw Hitler’s social conservatism (He was anti alcohol, pornography, etc.) and declared him acceptable.