On The Politics of Evangelicals — To The Praise of His Glory

Last week, The Atlantic posted an article by Emma Green titled “Evangelicalism’s Silent Majority” (located here).

I think that it was interesting and accurately reflects the position of many evangelicals; and by "evangelicals" here, I mean the definition that Barna uses (see description here). There are many "nominal" Christians (again, Barna definition) that would not agree with Anderson, but this should not be surprising.

To better understand where Anderson and other evangelicals are coming from, one has to understand their view of history and world events (past, present, and those to come). Scripture lays out these basic periods of time:

1. Creation of Heavens and Earth

2. The Fall

3. The Flood

4. God's Call to Abraham

5. 12 Tribes of Israel, the Exodus, and the Establishment of the Nation of Israel

6. The Coming of Messiah (first coming)

7. The Church Age (the "Last Days")

8. The Coming of Messiah (second coming)

9. Creation of New Heavens and New Earth

10. Eternal State

We are currently in #7, often referred to in Scripture as these "last days". From a biblical perspective, the trajectory of history right now has only one subject: The building of the Church. This period began at Pentecost and will continue until the last Gentile (non-Jew) is gathered into the Church. Once that event occurs, Messiah will return to Earth and things roll out from there.

Evangelicals know this and are exhorted to keep this in mind as they live out their lives. Our two primary purposes are: (A) To give glory to God and (B) to be God's agents in building the Church through the proclamation of the Gospel (i.e. the Great Commission; Matt 28:16-20). And that's really it - just these two.

So when it comes to politics, well that's just a working out of forces in "the world" and is quite secondary/unimportant. That doesn't mean that evangelicals don't have an opinion on the current politics; they just tend to be much more focused on God's work - keep the main thing the main thing.

There is also a small portion of evangelicals that believe that their primary purposes are: (A) To give glory to God and (B) be God's agent in the restoration of the Earth back to its original state (#1) and also (C) be God's agent in building the Church.

In the prior view, the creation is restored by Messiah after he returns. In this latter view, the restoration is accomplished and then Messiah returns. This latter view is comprised mainly (but not exclusively) of younger Christians. They also believe that their work of (B) is required as part of communicating the love and good news of God to non-believers, thus accomplishing (C). This shows up practically speaking as work in social justice and other social gospel activities. Of course, this is also a view held by liberal denominations. And these people tend to be much more vocal and active in politics.