While Christians may not like the alternatives, voting for a party that celebrates murder in the womb, transgenderism, and a host of other sexual deviancies is at best exceedingly unwise and at worst sinful. Christians live as dual citizens of an earthly nation and the heavenly kingdom. 

To paraphrase Aristotle, politics is the science and art of governing men. We normally use the word politics to refer to governing people at the level of the government or the governing authorities or the state.[1]
Today many evangelical churches in America feel tension about how to approach politics. All Christians care about justice, but we don’t always agree about how to identify injustice and how to right those wrongs.
I plan to address politics, conscience, and the church by recommending a way forward. I’ll do that by answering three questions:

Why do Christians sometimes disagree with one another over politics?
Why should Christians distinguish between straight-line and jagged-line political issues? For a clear biblical command, there is a straight line from a biblical or theological principle to a political position (e.g., the Bible forbids murder, so we oppose abortion). For an issue that requires wisdom, there is a multistep process (or a jagged line) from a biblical or theological principle to a political position (e.g., immigration policy).
How should Christians disagree over jagged-line political issues?

I have opinions about politics, and I think my political judgments about issues such as immigration, tax policy, healthcare, welfare, global warming, and gun control are right. (And you think your opinions about politics are right, too.) But as much as I would enjoy arguing for my personal convictions, my goal in this article is to help you understand why, when, and how you should agree to disagree in political matters.
1. Why Do Christians Sometimes Disagree with One Another over Politics?
Christians disagree with one another over politics for at least two reasons.
Reason 1. Because Christians Care about Justice and Believe That Their Political Convictions Promote Justice
Let’s break this first reason down into four components:
1. Justice according to the Bible is (1) getting what you deserve and (2) giving others what they deserve.[2]
Justice is doing what is right according to the standard of God’s will and character as he has revealed it in his word.
It’s important to carefully define our terms because some people have recently redefined justice and fairness and equity to refer to equal outcomes. They think that God is unfair if unequal outcomes exist. An example of an unequal outcome is that some people have more wealth than others.
But we must distinguish between (1) equal outcomes and (2) justice or fairness or equity or impartiality. God is just and fair and equitable and impartial, but that does not mean everyone experiences equal outcomes because God has the freedom to show undeserved kindness to whomever he wants.
Case in point is Jesus’s parable of the laborers in the vineyard in Matthew 20:1–16. The master gives each laborer what he deserves, and he gives some laborers more than they deserve. To get justice is to get what you deserve. It is not unfair to give extra to some, even when they are less deserving than others. As long as God gives each person what he deserves, God is not unfair when he sovereignly chooses to be undeservedly kind to some and not others. And not one of us deserves God’s kindness. God is always fair: “all his ways are justice” (Deut. 32:4).
2. Christians care about justice.
Why? Because justice characterizes God: “he has established his throne for justice” (Ps. 9:7), and he “is exalted in justice” (Isa. 5:16). And the just God has justified Christians. Justification is to justice what faith is to good works. Faith results in good works; doing good deeds gives evidence of faith (Matt. 7:15–20; James 2:14–26). Similarly, being justified results in a desire to do justice; doing justice gives evidence of being justified.
3. Governments exist for the purpose of justice.
Remember, justice according to the Bible is (1) getting what you deserve and (2) giving others what they deserve. God instituted governments to do justice for everyone created in his image (Gen. 9:5–6; Rom. 13:1–7; cf. 2 Sam. 8:15; 1 Kgs. 10:9; Prov. 29:4). So when Christians talk about abortion, immigration, poverty, or so-called same-sex marriage, they are fundamentally talking about doing justice and opposing injustice.
What are some examples of public injustice that Christians should be concerned about today? In a WORLD Opinions article in March 2022, Thaddeus Williams wisely presents four issues that our pursuit of justice should include even if it’s unpopular in our culture (I’ll quote and paraphrase him):

Abortion: Our pursuit of justice should include “these tiny humans exterminated because larger humans consider them inconvenient, genetically inferior, or too female.”
Pornography and its connection to child porn, human trafficking, rape, domestic violence, impaired brain function, broken relationships, and depression: Our pursuit of justice should include “the victims of the exploitative pornography industry.”
The persecution of believers around the world: Christians are “being targeted, imprisoned, beaten, raped, hanged, crucified, and bombed for claiming Jesus as Lord.” Our pursuit of justice should include “the millions of Christians imprisoned or executed around the globe.”
Socialism: “The quest to achieve economic equality between the rich and poor through communist and socialist policies has resulted in more than 100 million casualties in the 20th century alone.” Our pursuit of justice should include “the desperately oppressed victims of far-left economic systems.”[3]

Each of those four issues is a matter of systemic injustice. Those are just four examples of public justice issues.
4. The world has redefined justice by attaching certain adjectives before it.
Here are five examples:

LGBT justice: Everyone must affirm and celebrate the ideology of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people—and any sexual orientations or gender identities that do not correspond to heterosexual norms. That’s LGBT justice. (I think that justice would look more like Genesis 19:24: “The LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven.”)
Reproductive justice: Pregnant people (not women but pregnant people since now “men” can get pregnant, too) have a human right to have personal bodily autonomy—to choose to keep or to kill the unborn baby in one’s womb. That’s reproductive justice. (I think that justice would look more like what God commanded the Israelites in Leviticus 20:2: “Any one  . . . who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death.”)
Distributive justice: Society must distribute (or allocate) power and resources so that there are equal outcomes. That’s distributive justice. (I think that justice is that God-ordained authorities impartially punish lawbreaking and right wrongs.)
Racial justice: Society must remove systemic racial disparities in areas such as wealth, income, education, and employment. Justice is equal outcomes, and a failure to have equal outcomes is racism. That’s racial justice. (I think that justice is that society treats all ethnicities impartially.)
Social justice: In order to understand what social justice typically means in our culture today, you have to understand what Critical Theory is. In a nutshell Critical Theory affirms four beliefs:[4]

(1) Society is divided into two groups: oppressors and oppressed. The oppressors have power, and they are evil bullies; the oppressed do not have power, and they are innocent victims.(2) Oppressors (the dominant group) maintain their power by imposing their ideology on everyone.(3) Lived experience gives oppressed people special access to truths about their oppression.(4) Society needs social justice—that is, society needs to pursue equal outcomes by deconstructing and eliminating all forms of social oppression. Social oppression includes not just disparities regarding race and ethnicity but also gender, sexual orientation, religion, physical ability, mental ability, and economic class. The term wokeness refers to the state of being consciously aware of and “awake” to this social injustice. The term woke is “a shorthand to describe someone who, whether consciously or unconsciously, has adopted grievances and activism rooted in Cultural Marxism and Critical Theory, especially related to the intersectional oppression matrix of race, gender, and sexuality.”[5] That’s social justice. (Is that justice? I think that justice is that God-ordained authorities oppose partiality in civic life by impartially punishing unjust perpetrators and righting wrongs.)[6]

So the first reason Christians sometimes disagree over politics is that Christians care about justice and believe that their political convictions promote what they perceive as justice. The second reason is like the first.
Reason 2. Because Christians Have Different Degrees of Wisdom for Making Political Judgments and Tend to Believe That They Have More Wisdom Than Those Who Differ
Most political judgments depend on wisdom, and only God is all-wise. Some political judgments are difficult because we lack wisdom. Even if we agree on biblical principles, we may disagree over methods and tactics and timing and more.
The goal of politics is justice; the means is wisdom. Two examples may help illustrate that most controversial political issues depend on wisdom: abortion and immigration.
Example 1: Abortion
The Bible forbids abortion since deliberately killing an unborn person is a form of murder. Therefore, churches should take a stand against abortion—both in their preaching and in their membership decisions. We should not affirm that a person is a Christian—a church member in good standing—if he or she is unrepentantly promoting abortion, whether by personally encouraging women to seek abortions or by politically advocating for abortion.
But Christians do not agree on all the political tactics for opposing the injustice of abortion. For example, should a church promote a pro-life march? Maybe. Maybe not. A particular march may or may not be wise, and a pastor should use his pastoral authority wisely.
Example 2: Immigration
Consider the controversy surrounding migrants crossing the southern United States border. One group of Christians believes the present laws that limit immigration are just fine. If anything, they believe we need to tighten the restrictions in order to protect our nation and our children. Another group of Christians argues that humanitarian considerations mean allowing as many migrants in as the present law allows, or even changing the laws to accommodate more.
So how many migrants should a nation permit a year? How many asylum seekers? How will that affect the lives and livelihoods of its citizens? How should we combat lawlessness and terrorism? What is the best way to prevent and combat drug and human trafficking? Is a nation obligated to undertake all the costs of processing the hundreds of thousands of migrants who might show up at the borders?
Answering those questions requires wisdom. Political judgments require a person to rightly understand biblical principles and then to apply those principles based on social dynamics, legal precedent, political feasibility, historical factors, economic projections, criminal justice considerations, and more.
So those are two reasons that Christians sometimes disagree over politics. Now let’s consider Question 2:
2. Why Should Christians Distinguish between Straight-Line and Jagged-Line Political Issues?
Before I answer that question, I need to define what I mean by straight-line and jagged-line political issues.[7]

For a straight-line issue, there is a straight line from a biblical or theological principle to a political position. For instance, the Bible teaches that murder is sinful; abortion is a form of murder; therefore, we should oppose abortion. That’s a straight line. That is why a church should initiate the church-discipline process with a member who is advocating for abortion—such as encouraging a single pregnant woman to get an abortion or supporting Planned Parenthood.
But for a jagged-line issue, there is a multistep process from a biblical or theological principle to a political position. Fellow church members should agree on straight-line political issues, and they should recognize Christian freedom on jagged-line political issues.

Many political issues are not straight-line issues. Probably most are jagged-line issues—issues like immigration caps and tax rates and trade policy and healthcare and carbon dioxide emission caps. For such issues, I’m not sure we can say there is “the” Christian position—though some positions are better than others.
It’s right for churches to take a stand on straight-line issues through preaching and membership decisions. But church leaders need to be careful about whether to take institutional stands on jagged-line issues. Straight-line issues are about what we might call “the Christian position,” and jagged-line issues belong to the domain of Christian freedom (which doesn’t mean the issues are unimportant or that some views are not incorrect).
Now that we’ve explained jagged-line vs. straight-line political issues, we are ready to answer the question Why should Christians agree to disagree over jagged-line political issues? For at least two reasons:
Reason 1. Because Christians Should Respect Fellow Christians Who Have Differently Calibrated Consciences on Jagged-Line Issues[8]
Jagged-line issues correspond to what Paul in Romans 14:1 calls “disputable matters” (NIV) or “opinions” (ESV) or matters of conscience. Your conscience is your consciousness of what you believe is right and wrong. That implies that your conscience is not necessarily correct on every issue. What you believe is right and wrong is not necessarily the same thing as what God believes is right and wrong. You might believe with deep conviction in your conscience that a ten-year-old boy has the right to choose to become a female. If so, your conscience is not functioning correctly for that issue because it is based on immoral standards. You should calibrate your conscience.
The idea of calibrating your conscience pictures your conscience as an instrument. Instruments can be incorrect: your bathroom scale may say you weigh 142 pounds when you actually weigh 139. When an instrument is incorrect, it needs to be calibrated. To calibrate an instrument is to align it with a standard to ensure that it’s functioning accurately.
The standard for what’s right and wrong is God, who has revealed himself to us particularly through the Bible. So when your conscience is not functioning accurately, you should endeavor to align it with God’s words. The classic example of this in the Bible is the Apostle Peter. He was convinced in his conscience that it was sinful to eat certain foods—like pork. God told Peter three times to “kill and eat” animals that Peter considered to be unclean. Peter had the gall to reply to God, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” But because the Lord was commanding Peter to eat those foods, Peter had to calibrate his conscience so that he would have the confidence to accept food and people that he previously could not accept (see Acts 10:9–16).
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The event for the righteous, that is, those accounted righteous for the sake of Christ, is an event of unparalleled joy, bliss, and glory. “The souls of the Righteous being then made perfect in holiness, are received into paradise where they are with Christ, and behold the face of God, in light and glory.” In his great sermon, “A Believer’s Last Day His Best Day,” Thomas Brooks (1608-1680) pointed to six changes on the day of death that constitute the reality of the believer’s hope. 

31:1. The bodies of those who have died return to dust and undergo destruction. But their souls neither die nor sleep, because they have an immortal character, and immediately return to God who gave them. The souls of the righteous are then made perfect in holiness and are received into paradise. There they are with Christ and behold the face of God in light and glory while they wait for the full redemption of their bodies. The souls of the wicked are thrown into hell, where they remain in torment and utter darkness, reserved for the judgment of the great day. The Scripture recognizes no place other than these two for souls separated from their bodies.
(Genesis 3:19; Acts 13:36. Ecclesiastes 12:7. Luke 23:43; 2 Corinthians 5:1, 6,8; Philippians 1:23; Hebrews 12:23. Jude 6, 7; 1 Peter 3:19; Luke 16:23, 24)
Second London Confession, 31:1
A Common Experience of Disembodied and heightened Consciousness.
“The bodies of men after death return to dust and see corruption.” What happens to the relationship between body and soul at death. This in its immediate effects is the same for all persons. At death the bodies of all persons complete their state of corruption by a rapid deterioration to dust. “From dust thou art to dust thou shalt return” (Genesis 3:19). The curse that fell upon all person as a result of the sin of Adam was the certainty of physical death. The special provision made by God for the immediate reception of Enoch and Elijah do not render the general curse doubtful or erratic (Genesis 5:21-24; 2 Kings 2:10, 11). The preacher of Ecclesiastes pointed to this universal certainty in saying, “Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed, . . . Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and spirit will return to God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:6, 7).
Paul expected that death would mean that the consciousness of the spirit would be unclothed for the earthly house would be destroyed. He desired to move immediately from residence in this earthly, corruptible body to the “habitation which is from heaven.” Being unclothed, having a heightened consciousness outside the body, was not the ultimately desirable state. He knew, nevertheless, that to be in this corruptible body was to be absent from the Lord and to be absent from the body was to be present with the Lord. Before we go into the presence of the Lord, these bodies will die and then will undergo corruption unless our mortality is immediately swallowed up by life (2 Corinthians 5:1-8). The vagueness of mind that finds death so impenetrable, the immediate presence of God so mysterious, or the deluded assumption of some that consciousness simply ceases immediately gives way to a presence of the bright personal holiness of the triune God. Both the believer and the unbeliever will be consciously present—conscience, affections, memory, thoughts, unfiltered by devices of self-protection—before the all-knowing, all-seeing Creator and Judge.
The soul neither dies nor sleeps. “But their souls (which neither die nor sleep) having an immortal subsistence, immediately return to God who gave them.”  The soul is a created thing and does not have self-existence and thus its immortal subsistence is due to something given by God when God breathed into Adam’s nostrils the “breath of life” (Genesis 2:7). “Let us make man in our image,” the triune God said (Genesis 1:26). Out of all the created beings, only man was given responsible moral character, the ability to discern right and wrong, to reflect the character of God in the choice of the good, right, and holy. Man ‘s moral nature made necessary his unceasing life in the light of the eternal relevance of his moral responsibility. Because eternal consequences are at stake in each moral choice, humans can never simply pass out of existence but will bear the consequences, in body and soul, in the way they have responded to God’s righteousness as revealed in his Law. Though man is finite, his interaction with an infinitely holy God gives each of his actions infinite and eternal relevance. Nothing arising from the moral nature of image-bearers will go unanswered and none can perish or sleep for there is never a moment when moral responsibility is absent or the moral judgment of God rests.
Particular blessings of death for the Righteous
The world recedes; it disappears!
Heaven opens on my eyes! My ears
With sounds seraphic ring:
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O Grave where is they victory?
O death, where is thy sting?
– Alexander Pope –
The event for the righteous, that is, those accounted righteous for the sake of Christ, is an event of unparalleled joy, bliss, and glory. “The souls of the Righteous being then made perfect in holiness, are received into paradise where they are with Christ, and behold the face of God, in light and glory.” In his great sermon, “A Believer’s Last Day His Best Day,” Thomas Brooks (1608-1680) pointed to six changes on the day of death that constitute the reality of the believer’s hope.  One, there is a “change of place. . . . He changes earth for heaven.” The confession says that the souls of the righteous are “received into paradise.” “Today,” Jesus told the repenting, believing, adoring thief, “you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:40-43). Presently we are not in our place, therefore, we groan. On the day of death, groaning ceases, for believers have departed that environment and “they are with Christ” who has loved us with an everlasting love.
Second, death brings for the righteous a “change of company.” No longer do the profane, the vile, the wicked, the scoffer poison the society, no longer is the soul vexed with the oppressive jocularity of the skeptic, but the reality of the living God, Jesus the Mediator, the presence of holy angels, the spirits of just men made perfect, the perfect harmony of a redeemed assembly immediately provide a company of true fellowship and undiluted joy.
A third change becomes obvious when the employment of our energies in a constant fight and warfare against the world, the flesh, and the devil cease. What an unimaginable release from conflict and constant watchfulness is accomplished on the day of death. This fight is exchanged for praise and the consciousness of perfect triumph with no insurrection of enemies even contemplated.
Fourth, there is a change of “enjoyments.” These enjoyments move from being obscure to being sweet, from imperfect to perfect, and from transient to permanent—“the Souls of the Righteous being made perfect in holiness.” This perfect holiness gives an unchangeable and optimal quality to the enjoyments of the Christian.
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Written by G. Campbell Morgan |
Sunday, December 24, 2023
You tell me that the miracles of Jesus were supernatural. I tell you, they were always restorations of the unnatural to natural positions. When he cured disease, it was but the restoration of man’s normal physical condition. He was taking away the results of sin. So, all along the line of his miracles of healing and his calling back out of death, he manifested his power. I see him in the contest with sin, showing men tentatively, not yet finally, how he had the power to take away sins.

Many people have difficulty celebrating Christmas because of their pain and heartache. But for the Christian, the Lord often uses pain and sorrow to move us into a more profound celebration because we realize that the Child we are celebrating is our ultimate redemption from all pain and heartache. The following profound thought by G. Campbell Morgan tells us why.
The terms of the promise of the advent were, “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” From hell? Certainly, but I pray you remember, only by saving them from their sins. He saves us not only from the punishment of sin but, more importantly, from sin itself. That was the great word, “He shall save his people from their sins.” When the shepherds heard the angels’ song, what did they say? “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” The promise of advent was that the coming One would take away sins.
During the probation of the long years, this person was meeting all the forces of human temptation and overcoming them. I think we may accurately and reverently speak of the long years of probation as testing years, years in which the fact of the sinlessness of the Son of God was worked out into human visibility.
What were the words of Jesus during his life and ministry?
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