Good religion is good for politics

Americans want to see more religion in politics. According to a recent Pew Research poll, 49 percent of respondents think that churches and other houses of worship “should express their views on social and political issues,” up from 41 percent in 2010.

Most of these people cannot have in mind just any religion. Internationally, the more Islam we see in politics, the less liberty and the more oppression there is. We see it in older, stable forms as in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and in revolutionary newer forms as in the regime Ayatollah Khomeini introduced in Iran and the creeping autocracy members of the Muslim Brotherhood were attempting in Egypt before the military jailed them. To our horror, we see it also in the exceedingly monstrous tyrannies in Afghanistan under the Taliban and in the lands controlled by ISIS. This sort of religion would not improve our situation.

While it is not my place to say what “true Islam” is, I know what Christianity is and what the effect of an orthodox understanding of the biblical God is on political life.

God governs. He establishes governments through various means, including by popular elections. They are accountable to Him for governing with justice for the sake of the governed.

When God governed Israel, He was their king, their legislator, and their judge (Isaiah 33:22). As Harry Jaffa observed, these three branches of government could be safely united in God only because of His “infinite wisdom, goodness and rectitude.” But for fallen human beings, these powers must be kept separate to prevent corruption and oppression.

Unlike Muhammad’s Allah, the God whom Christians worship is Trinitarian, one being in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And they eternally love each other. It is in this sense, and only because of this, that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). It is also only because of this that we are the sort of beings that love each other, thatcan love each other, and that are morally obliged to love each other.

Good government, therefore, is obliged to love the governed in ways appropriate to the relationship. So it also is tasked with preserving society, as best it can, as a community of people who love each other. It should forbid things, and refrain from doing things, that make it harder for people to love each other: families, neighbors, strangers. And it should do whatever is suitable for it to encourage and enable love among us, like praising heroes and commending good neighbors.

As biblical religion wanes, love grows cold among us, and people turn to government to supply what is lacking, and government is happy to fill the void. But human government does a poor job in the God role because it is made up of people like you and me … at best.

Perhaps what the Pew poll found is people’s sense that government needs to be more responsive to the voice of the God of Christmas and Easter, whose positive ratings are much higher than those of either party in Washington, and that we need more love down here in America and more restraint of conscience up there in the Celestial City of D.C.