Hi Carmen. Thank you for reading and interacting with my article. That is an encouragement to me.
I appreciate your love for the Gospel, and hopefully, you are able to see that I love the Gospel too, and it is of ultimate importance to me.
However, I stand by my statement that, “when it comes to politics, Christians should be focused exclusively on the Law — not the Gospel.” Please note that I provided the following argument to support my assertion: “Classical Christianity recognizes the importance of civil society — humans, after all, are social beings — and it recognizes three crucial institutions of civil society: (i) the Family (the most important and fundamental institution of civil society); (ii) the Church; and (iii) the State (what we refer to as ‘government’). The State is unique in that it has the authority to ‘bear the sword.’ It is the State’s responsibility to ensure its citizens live in a just and safe society. One of the fundamental responsibilities of government is to restrain evil by punishing evildoers. It is not the government’s role to promote the Gospel — that is the responsibility of the Church. It is the government’s responsibility to maintain law and order. Ultimately, as the founders of the United States understood, it is the government’s responsibility to develop and maintain a system of law and justice based on the Ten Commandments. As the Acton Institute puts it, ‘The reality of sin makes the state necessary to restrain evil.’”
To understand why I say that Christians should be focused on the Law — and not the Gospel — in politics, it is necessary to understand the purpose of government as prescribed by God in the Bible. Romans, chapter 13, tells us that the purpose of government is to praise those who do good and punish those who do evil. To be able to execute the punishment of evil, government “bears the sword.” Thus, the purpose of government, as prescribed by God, is to maintain law and order and to establish a society governed by the “Rule of Law,” and that Law is summarized in the Ten Commandments.
In our country, far too many “evangelicals” have voted for politicians who claimed to be “Christians” but who did not govern with any respect for or even any view to the The Ten Commandments. Even sincere Christians in government have made serious errors in judgment, when they conflated their God-given responsibility to “praise those who do good and punish those who do evil” with their love for the Gospel. For example, Mike Huckabee (whom I think is a sincere Christian), when he was Governor of Arkansas, pardoned several convicted murderers, rapists and other violent criminals, who, after they were released, committed additional horrible crimes. ( https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=3983797&page=1 ) Huckabee was motivated by a love for mercy and forgiveness. But his judgment was flawed. He failed to carry out his responsibility to “punish those who do evil.”
The Church, of course, should be on Death Row, and everywhere else, pointing lost sinners to the Savior, in hopes of them repenting, finding forgiveness, and their eternal souls being saved. But the State should carry out its God-given responsibility to “praise those who do good and punish those who do evil.” The Church and the State have different responsibilities under the rule of God.
