CITIZEN-KINGS AND POLITICAL ACTIVISM...by Tom Ascol

A Timely Encore Presentation

I received a call from my friend (and executive director of The Founders Ministries), Tom Ascol, this morning and in the course of that conversation I expressed to him my deep appreciation for his solid biblical insights expressed recently on the Founders Ministry website and blog concerning JS2, church and politics and political activism (a link which I feature on this blog.) Tom and I are one mind on these issues and I thank the Lord for him. In a recent blog post I believe Tom represents the balance between biblical Christianity and our duty to society (I have posted his comments below for you to read). As he and I spoke we shared a common concern for much of the misguided political direction in evangelicalism today (i.e. ECB, Justice Sunday 2).

To whet your appetite, here are a few of his razor-sharp thoughts about "church and politics" taken from his blog posted this past Monday, August 15th:

"I make a distinction (a necessary one, it seems to me) between the role and function of the church and the role and function of individual believers. A Christian can go to war in behalf of the state, but a church must never take up the physical sword as part of its mission. A Christian can be a magistrate (king, president, senator, etc.) but a church must never seek to rule a geo-political structure with political authority."

"The nature, purpose and mission of the church is to be determined by the Word of God and the Word of God alone. As a pastor I have often been lobbied by individuals and organizations who have wanted "my church" to go on record in support of (Right to Life) or protest against (public schools) various political and social causes. By and large I have declined such overtures."

"It is right and proper for Christians to be involved in every level of politics as individual citizens. But when they call for a Christian congregation to become institutionally involved in political activism they are guilty of distracting that church from its God-given mission. It is precisely because of this that the religious right's proposals are disastrous for evangelical churches."

"I find much agreement with Martyn Lloyd-Jones at this point. In an interview with Carl Henry in 1980 he said, "It amazes me that evangelicals have suddenly taken such an interest in politics." He went on to call such interest "sheer folly.... You can't reform the world. That's why I disagree entirely with the 'social and cultural mandate' teaching and its appeal to Genesis 1:28. It seems to me to forget completely the Fall. You can't Christianize the world. The end time is going to be like the time of the Flood. The condition of the modern world proves that what we must preach more than ever is 'Escape from the wrath to come!' The situation is critical. I believe the Christian people--but not the church--should get involved in politics and social affairs. The kingdom task of the church is to save men from the wrath to come by bringing them to Christ. This is what I believe and emphasize. The main function of politics, culture, and all these things is to restrain evil. They can never do an ultimately positive work. Surely the history of the world demonstrates that. You can never Christianize the world."

"It is for this resason that all the calls to "reclaim America for Christ" leave me cold. Our real need is to reclaim the church for Christ. When Christ is exalted in His church, when He is loved and revered and cherised with passion by those who bear His Name--in other words, when the church starts living like the church--then His body cannot help but make an impact on culture."

We both agree that we are to be given over to biblical cultural engagement, but not to the kind of ecumenical political practice absent of the declaration of God's Word and the gospel of sola fide that those in the ECB camp champion. I so appreciate his voice on this issue and I highly commend to you the following entry by Tom. "May his tribe increase!"

Grace and peace to you,
Steve Camp
Col. 1:9-14
Read more of Tom's articles

Tuesday August 16th
"My antipathy toward JSII and the growing evangelical political activism does not mean that I think Christians should opt out of the political process. In fact, I want to be clear in stating that I recognize the church has a prophetic role to play in relation to political powers. "Speaking truth to power" may have been sloganized by liberals but it is an apt description of the church's responsibility to civil authorities. This is a part of the church's calling as the pillar and ground of the truth.

Beyond this, I believe that American Christians actually have a responsibility to be involved in the political process to promote justice and goodness. Let me try to explain the direction of my thinking about this.

Does the Bible give directives to civil rulers and monarchs? Even the most convinced pietist would, I think, agree. Romans 13:1-7 not only calls for Christians to submit to civil authorities but it also states that civil authorities are under God's authority and are therefore accountable to Him to reward good and punish evil. The Old Testament abounds with examples of God holding rulers accountable for the way they rule. This is true not only of the kings of Judah and Israel but also the kings of pagan nations.

If we lived under a monarchy we would have not only the right but the duty to call on the monarch to govern justly, knowing (whether he acknowledged it or not) that he is God's servant and obligated to reward good and punish evil.

But we do not live in a monarchy. We live in a democratic republic. Who is our civil king? We are. The citizens. We are citizen-kings. Thus we have not only the right but the responsibility to use the political process established by the republic to promote that which is good and restrict that which is evil. Citizen-kings should advocate good laws and decry bad ones. We should hold elected officials responsible for the trust we vest in them. Citizen-kings are responsible to work for justice and goodness in society."

THE DUNG OF OUR OWN RIGHTEOUSNESS...the Manhattan Declaration

-Titus 3:1-8-

Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities,

to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, 2 to speak evil of no one,

to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.

3 For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray,

slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in

malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared,

5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness,

but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and

renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly

through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by his grace

we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

8 The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things,

so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote

themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.

I posted this on Twitter the other day and I wanted to share it with you here. It is graphic and bold driven by the desire to see evangelicalism return back to its fundamentals biblically. To be God-centered; Christ-centered; Gospel-centered; Cross-centered once again. This surrounds the latest of evangelicalism's attempt to be culturally relevant, politically expedient in order to overcome the moral maladies sweeping through our nation. However this has been attempted again without the centrality of the gospel of sola fide being proclaimed as the cure.

Here is my post from Twitter:

"The Manhattan Declaration is the dung dropped from the bowels of an evangelical cobelligerent ecumenism, with the gospel of sola fide shrouded in Rome's Papal robes."

The current partnership with Romanism among mainline evangelicals is bewildering to me. Even those well respected leaders within the reformed camp that I admire and hold in high esteem have now lended their signatures and ministries in support of this latest foray into politics via a Papal mandate. Ecumenism has been the mantra of Rome for centuries. They are inclusive by theological wrested conviction. Cults always are. They will marry error with some truth and call it orthodoxy. But the rags of their skewed gospel cannot hide the nakedness of their false teachings. Satan would like nothing more than for you to worship anything except the biblical Jesus and His gospel even if what he is counterfeiting comes in the name of Jesus through social, political, even moral means.

Abortion, same sex marriage and Christian freedoms are all spiritual issues and cannot be battled with carnal weaponry. The minister of the gospel has been given a heavenly charge to not let anything detour them from "the ministry of the Word and prayer." Two powerful weapons: the Word of God and prayer! And when those things are done in the power of the Holy Spirit - the church can "take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ."

The supplanting of the centrality of gospel preaching and gospel truth coupled with the utter disregard for biblical fidelity and yoking with unbelievers in ministry within culture is jack-hammering away at the very foundations of biblical Christianity. And once again, hell is burning while the church sleeps!

The Reformation of the 1500's led by Luther gave birth to Protestantism and recovered the gospel of justification by faith at a great cost to many. Many sacrificed their lives for the glory of Christ and His truths. With the signing of this document, their names and contribution in history for the preservation of biblical Christianity has been trampled under foot - let alone the very Word of God. So I come to you concerned and burdened for this latest trend again. We need revival beloved; we need reformation; we need to be calling our leaders to repentance in this area of ministry.

Let us remember our heritage; let us remember our heavenly charge to preach the Word in season and out of season; let us remember what biblical Christianity means; and may we serve Him with an undivided, uncompromised zeal. The hope for this world (abortionists, homosexuals, religious rights deterrentists, etc.) is the same as it is for you and I - the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Petitions, declarations, political rally's cannot change the heart of anyone.

Let us not let anything eclipse the gospel as we serve daily in our neighborhoods, towns, cities and communities.

Lord, revive us again...

ECUMENICAL POLITICS...by Phil Johnson

Charles Colson and co-author Anne Morse returned to "The Back Page" column in August's Christianity Today. They picked up right where they left off in the April issue—hammering Colson's favorite theme: "engaging contemporary culture."

"Engaging the culture" is Colson's pet euphemism for ecumenical political activism. He has been campaigning for years to persuade evangelicals to tone down or set aside what makes us evangelical, because he wants us to join hands in the public arena with an interfaith posse of political cobelligerents (including devout Roman Catholics, Mormons, Jews, and other religious traditionalists)—to lobby for reforming society's values through legislation.

That seems to be the only strategy Colson is willing to consider as a remedy for the moral rot of postmodern culture. He is convinced that those who don't share his commitment to ecumenical politics cannot possibly "engage the culture" in any meaningful sense. In other words, he clearly does not believe the gospel itself can transform culture. As a result, Colson doesn't seem to hear the actual concerns of evangelicals who are hesitant to join the ranks of his ecumenical moral crusade. He recounts how one "confused" pastor recently asked him, "Won't engaging the culture this way interfere with fulfilling the Great Commission?"

The question seems fair enough. "Engaging the culture" by Colson's preferred strategy demands, for example, that we downplay or silence the message of justification by faith alone—or risk alienating Colson's Roman Catholic allies in the culture war.

Of course, historic evangelicalism has always regarded the principle of sola fide as the very essence of the gospel message. That's what the Protestant Reformation was all about.

But if the very notion of "saving faith" must now be relegated to questionable or secondary status in order to keep peace in the religious right, how does that not "interfere with fulfilling the Great Commission"?The more cobelligerents Colson embraces, the bigger the problem becomes. As his circle of allies grows broader, the movement becomes less and less tolerant of gospel distinctives. You simply cannot solicit the support and partnership of Jewish leaders in a moral crusade if you're clearly and forcefully declaring the exclusivity of Christ. Colson's broad ecumenism is simply incompatible with the politically incorrect (but biblical, and essential) truth that explicit faith in Christ is the only way of salvation (John 14:6; Acts 4:12). As we pointed out in this column a few months ago, Colson himself has already endorsed Catholic apologist Peter Kreeft's call for Christian culture warriors to forge alliances with Muslims, Hindus, Confucians, and others who defend "traditional values" for religious reasons. How much will the Christian message need to be toned down in order to hold that kind of coalition together?

Will the price of membership in the religious right ultimately require Christians to cease mentioning the name of Christ completely for the sake of political appeasement? Are any of the moral issues on the agenda of the "religious right" (or even all of them combined) worth that kind of compromise? We think the pastor who challenged Colson was raising a perfectly valid question.

But Colson just doesn't get it. "That people still raise this question surprised me," he writes. In his view, the Great Commission is only half of the church's mission. Here's how he says he answered the anonymous pastor's question: "Of course we're called to fulfill the Great Commission," I replied. "But we're also called to fulfill the cultural commission." Christians are agents of God's saving grace—bringing others to Christ, I explained—but we are also agents of his common grace: sustaining and renewing his creation, defending the created institutions of family and society, critiquing false worldviews.

Colson goes on. He alludes to Genesis 1:28 as the biblical basis for a "cultural commission" ("Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.")

"When we are redeemed," he says, "we are both freed from sin and restored to do what God designed us to do: Create culture." Of course, we don't deny that Christianity ought to shape culture, as it has, historically, whenever the gospel has been preached effectively. But we think it's a bit of a stretch to find a "cultural mandate" for political activism in Genesis 1:28. And we certainly don't see any model for the sort of political activism Colson favors anywhere in the biblical record of apostolic activity. If Colson's strategy is the right one, why didn't the apostles forge political alliances with the Pharisees and the Zealots—not to mention the Stoics, who championed high ethical values and opposed the moral decay of Roman society?

What we really object to in Colson's rhetoric is his assumption that preaching the gospel and "engaging culture" are two distinct activities. Although he says he believes the Great Commission and the "cultural commission" are "inseparable," he clearly regards these as disparate endeavors, with completely different aims. He treats "redeeming people and redeeming culture" as two discrete projects, the former to be accomplished by evangelism and the latter to be accomplished by political means. That is a serious mistake. There is no mandate anywhere for the church to "redeem culture" through the apparatus of democracy. The gospel is the only message of redemption (Romans 1:16; 1 Corinthians 1:17-25), and pagan societies are transformed for the better only as individuals respond to the gospel and experience the new birth. It is no part of our calling to cultivate a higher standard of external morality among pagans. Colson misses the point completely when he writes, "If we're tempted to ignore the great moral issues of our day, or dismiss them as 'just politics,' we are betraying our biblical mandate and our own heritage."

No one is arguing that Christians ought to "ignore the great moral issues of our day." What we're saying is that there are no effective political remedies for sin. The gospel is the only true answer to "alien philosophies" and worldviews that are hostile to righteousness. The proper way for Christians to "engage" and refute the wisdom of this world is by preaching "Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Corinthians 1:23-24). Colson quotes part of 2 Corinthians 10:5 to make the point that we need to apply Christian thinking to all of life. Bingo. But Colson misses the real significance of the text. The verse is Paul's prescription for spiritual warfare against false doctrines, and it gives the method he employed for the defense of the gospel: "casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." That strategy, rightly understood, would keep us from setting aside major gospel truths in order to gain non-Christian compatriots in an ill-advised political campaign for mere moral rearmament.

If we lose sight of the fact that "the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God" (1 Corinthians 3:19)— including the "wisdom" of conservative politics and religious moralists—we have already capitulated in the culture war. If we silence parts of the gospel in order to gain lobbying clout in the political arena, we will forfeit the only message that can "redeem the culture."

Colson comes close to the truth when he writes, "Real Christianity invariably provides a healthy influence on society." That's certainly true. So why not devote our best energies to evangelism, the only legitimate means of spreading "real Christianity"? At one point in his article, Colson writes, "I wish we had the courage of some of our Catholic brethren who've threatened to withhold Communion (and implicitly, votes) from those who flout biblical teaching."

Admittedly, we find it hard to work up much enthusiasm over what (so far) have been pretty much empty threats. Meanwhile, we wish Colson and his evangelical companions had the courage (and confidence in the power of God's Word) shown by those first-century Christians whose preaching and evangelism "turned the world upside down" (Acts 17:6)

Visit Phil's website. and his excellent blog,

an encore presentation

THE MANHATTAN DECLARATION and EVANGELICAL CO-BELLIGERENCE...the ineffectual intersection of politics and faith

“The goal of both the church and the state is to advance the public good.”

-Francis Beckwith

The ultimate goal of the church biblically

is not the public good,

but the glory of God in the proclamation

and advancement of His gospel of sola fide.

God, not the audience, is sovereign.

The “public good” is political speak for tolerance.

The gospel, however, does divide;

it is a stumbling block, offensive and foolishness

for those who are perishing.

Here we go again!

In the face of President Obama's economic wasteland and political indecision vacuum concerning Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq; coupled with an abortion provision being slipped into the latest health care bill championed by Harr Reid yand company - the religious right has found reason again to try itself in the political arena through The Manhattan Declaration.

It is nothing more than ECT (Evangelicals and Catholics Together) and Justice Sunday revisited. Same framers and advocates of the benign philosophy of political remedy for moral malady. The religious right of the past 24 years has all but been silenced. And despite the grass-root efforts by many well respected evangelical leaders and politicians, our country remains unchanged on key social and family issues. So once again, those who are impassioned about important social issues from a "faith perspective" such as abortion, same sex marriage, and religious liberty and freedom, are all but silent about the real "faith solution" for these same issues. The solution being regeneration through the Lord Jesus Christ and not political legislation. The solution for the Christian must be Gospel-Centered; Christ-Centered; and Cross-Centered. Anything less is ineffectual in bringing real resolve spiritually to these concerns.

The lack of sea change in American society to a conservative political ethic for many of us has been frustrating. But attempting to fight spiritual battles with carnal weaponry is just as disappointing. Christians who in the past have sought real change on key cultural issues did so, in part, absent of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. IOW, the gospel became the afterthought, not the primary thought. That failed strategery to keep the proclamation of the gospel center in a righteous quest I have defined as Evangelical Co-Belligerence (ECB).

I offer the following definition:

Creating alliances with individuals or groups who do not share belief in or with orthodox biblical Christianity, in order to fight an agreed upon social, moral, cultural cause that seeks to undermine the traditional family and family values. This includes, but not limited to: gay marriage; abortion; euthanasia; etc. and those who aid, influence, or control such societal moral decline such as the Supreme Court, Congress, state and local officials, and a run-a-way Federal Judiciary. This is accomplished by using boycotts, petitions, picketing, legislation... any political remedies available to resolve the moral maladies in our nation.

This is further accomplished by organizing evangelicals/local churches as PAC's, lobbyist groups, or as some refer to as "Christocrats", as Christian voting blocks to threaten with militant tones sitting politicians with the prospect of not being reelected if they fail to adopt the ECB moral/family agenda. This tactic is being championed by many evangelical leaders, seminary presidents and pastors absent of the authority of Scripture, absent of the preaching of God's Word, and absent of the heralding of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. -Steve Camp, July 14, 2005

Christianity in culture does have impact and does produce change. But it only does so as long as Christianity doesn't become a political organization and remains at its very core deeply gospel-centered. Is it wrong for believers to enter politics? Of course not. Is it wrong for Christians in politics to use their office, driven by a biblical worldview, for the good of society and their fellow man as say Wilberforce did on the issue of slavery? Absolutely not. But the church itself is not driven by the brilliance of U.S. Constitutional ethics, but by the Scriptures of the living God.

So again, what is the solution to the plight our nation finds itself in? The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that brief answer is not about offering cultural reform back to an era of family values and more virtuous days. Jesus Christ did not come to transform America, but to transform Americans. The gospel is not the new nationalism for the conservative, but the hope for any sinner (like me and you) who by God's sovereign electing love trusts that eternal life and salvation is attained only by grace through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord alone.

IOW beloved, in this hour in our nations history may I propose a simple mandate: it is time for the church to be the church.

Gospel-driven Worship:

Acts 2:42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

Gospel-driven Welfare:

44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts,

Gospel-driven Witness:

47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.