There are a lot of dishonorable things going on in the country right now – and most of them are connected with a mindset that considers it okay to lie and to break the law. Sadly, this mindset has become so prominent in society that in many cases there is no consequence for doing it.
As I list some examples, there are those who will think I am putting a focus on politics. I am not. While some of these examples are focused in the realm of politics, the issue is the mindset (the worldview beliefs), not the mere political acts of those who are the agents of these examples.
So just what are some of these egregious things going on? Well, we have senators deliberately trying to sabotage a supreme court confirmation hearing by releasing documents that they are prohibited from doing, protesters in that same hearing illegally standing up and screaming in the middle of testimony in order to disrupt the meeting, the news media deliberately putting out false stories, top government officials taking illegal actions to try to thwart the efforts of politicians they don’t like, college students and university administrators preventing people they disagree with from speaking (often using violence), and social media companies working to silence viewpoints they disagree with. Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are, scores of other examples that could be given.
So where does this kind of behavior come from? It can all be traced to the naturalistic worldview beliefs that are at the root of the political point of view that is variously characterized as liberalism, progressivism, and more recently, democratic socialism. People who are acting in the dishonorable ways listed above are actually being consistent with their naturalistic worldview beliefs as they act in the ways they do.
While some people may be critical of me for “jumping into politics” when they think I should be sticking to religious themes, my point is that these acts of “politics” are religious acts. While it is possible for us to separate discussions of religion and politics when we are basing our discourse on a biblical worldview, that is simply not possible with Naturalism. Naturalism is the belief that the natural universe is all that exists, and that there is objectively no such thing as religion. Indeed, in this belief system, religion and politics are one and the same. With that as a starting point, everything is political. Thus, when Naturalists speak of politics, they are advocating for their religion.
So where does this leave us as Christians? It puts us in a position that if we want to share our faith with people who hold a naturalistic worldview, we have to also be able to speak of politics. Based on a Christian worldview, acting in the dishonorable ways described above are indications that people don’t know Christ, so are not inclined to follow laws or rules of order that don’t advance their political point of view. All morality, in Naturalism, is relative, so moral behavior is nothing more than what they deem it to be based on their own personal preferences. There is no such thing as objective right and wrong, so in their minds, they can never be wrong.
There is only one remedy to that … they have to have a change of heart. If we are prevented from speaking of the things that relate to the false beliefs of people who think disrespect for law and order is perfectly fine, we have no point of contact with them.
Sometimes, I, too, get really tired of watching all of the disrespect, dishonesty, dishonor, and downright hatred that we see going on in society. Sometimes I just want to turn off the news and ignore what is happening. But if I want to speak Christ into the midst of it, I can’t do that. Evil exists, and God has called us to be light in the midst of the darkness. Sometimes that means we just have to buck up and enter the fray – even if we don’t like it.