Do you think public schools should have pornographic books in the library? What do you think about critical theory? Shouldn’t we stand up against the LGBTQ+ agenda that’s indoctrinating our students? And then there’s the gender transitioning of minors. When will it stop? Shouldn’t the church speak up and get involved?
I was recently approached by a gentleman who asked if the faith-based nonprofit I lead would be willing to endorse a school board candidate. The question appealed to his assumption that we oppose pornography in schools. That assumption is correct. Actually, we oppose pornography everywhere it is found. But his question and what’s behind it is a bigger and, I think, more important issue about the way Christians engage in the public square.
Divisions and Opportunities Grow Together.
I don’t know about your community, but in mine, the political rancor only grows, and with it the divide between people who genuinely care about our kids and the future that we’re building. So, developing a robust public theology, and then working effectively with all kinds of people in the public square is more important than ever.
Developing a robust public theology, and then working effectively with all kinds of people in the public square is more important than ever.
In order to rely less on sound bites and more on sound rationales, I’m writing a short series of articles to address these questions. It’s my hope it will help you in your personal witness, build up the work of the local church, and equip us to build better communities together.
So, I’m going to ask you to consider four elements that will serve as daubs of paint on an artist’s palette. Rather than thinking of these as pillars or scaffoldings standing in isolation, I’m going to ask you to think of them as elements that must mix in order to be rightly applied to the canvas we call the public square.
In this post, I’ll introduce Element #1, Persuasion to Virtue. In future posts, I will unpack Element #2, Incarnational Responsibility, Element #3, Communication Integrity, and Element #4, Structural Remedy. It’s a work in progress, so here we go.
Element #1 Persuasion to Virtue
What would it look like if we pursued virtue rather than settling for micro-moralism? By micro-moralism, I’m referring to our opposition, sometimes outrage, to single immoral issues that captivate the public square at any given moment.
Granted, micro-immorality causes great damage, and the Great Commandment calls us to speak and act righteously wherever evil seeks to take ground. But Christians are often more animated to condemn issues of vice than we are to develop people of virtue. Let us contend for God’s design for marriage and sexuality in public policy, for example. That is a biblical mandate as we “act justly, love faithfulness, and walk humbly with our God” (Micah 6:8).
But focusing only on the moral issue of the day without also building a public framework for virtuous character is like holding back flood waters with your hands.
Focusing only on the moral issue of the day without also building a public framework for virtuous character is like holding back flood waters with your hands.
What happens, instead, when the key issues become a teaching opportunity more than a battle ground? An opportunity to persuade rather than simply a moment to condemn?
One of our founding principles as a nation is religious freedom. The state cannot require compliance in matters of conscience, nor should the church advocate for it to do so. But as Jonathan Leeman has said, “The separation between church and state does not mean the absence of Christians from politics.”
Christians should be engaged in the politics. We should advocate for righteousness in the public square. We should seek to persuade others toward Christian principles, but institutionalizing Christianity is not a noble goal.
Christian principles freely adopted even without personal Christian piety will produce better results for everyone, but reforms untethered from convincing and pragmatic rationales are unsustainable.
An increasingly pluralistic community will struggle with imposing Christian principles in the public square. We’re watching this happen at the speed of light in the current culture, but it’s not happening because people hate Jesus, the church, or even Christian principles. Some do, for sure. Some people are motivated by evil. But most every-day people, I believe, simply do not know better.
They know their hearts are troubled by perversions, family dysfunction, mental health challenges, and injustice, but they do not know why and they don’t know how to fix it. They don’t know about natural law—the law written on their hearts. They don’t know about the relationship between faith and freedom and the flourishing of societies.
But we can show them. More on that in the next piece on Incarnational Responsibility, but for now, we can be optimistic that people are persuaded by results that make their lives better.
A Pre-Christian America
Ours is not a post-Christian culture in America. It is a pre-Christian culture. The overwhelming majority of residents in average-town-USA have never engaged in biblical discipleship and thus have no intellectual rationale for why marriage is designed for a man and a woman, or why gender is binary, for example. They’ve heard cliches, but those cliches are generally less persuasive than opposing ones they find on TikTok.
And then when people who affirm Christian principles in the public square do not embody those principles in their personal lives, much of the Christian influence we hope for is diluted. A person can be “Pro-God,” for example, without being a godly person. A Christian citizen should be patriotic, but patriotism does not necessary translate to Christian citizenship.
So, as we grapple with these issues, our ultimate goal is neither to condemn or to affirm. Instead, our goal is to proclaim Jesus, to make His redeeming work known that He may transform souls, the communities we call home, and the society at large.
Our goal is to proclaim Jesus, to make His redeeming work known that He may transform souls, the communities we call home, and the society at large.
Rather than relying on micro-moralisms as our platform for public engagement, what happens when Christians become a people who seek, attain, and use our personal and public power to persuade others toward virtue rooted in creation, cultivated in our hearts by the presence of Jesus, and demonstrated in our lives through the outworking of His Spirit?
PICTURE OF THE WEEK
SUGGESTED READING
Let the Nations Rage. Rethinking Faith and Politics in a Divided Age, Jonathan Leeman
A Good Return. Biblical Principles for Work, Wealth, and Wisdom, John C. Lennox
EVERYONE’S WILSON | THE EVERYONE’S WELCOME NETWORK
I’m the Executive Director of Everyone’s Wilson and The Everyone’s Welcome Network—a Gospel-driven community transformation initiative. Our mission is to unite the Church to engage the community, so everyone thrives. Very simply, we’re passionate about helping Jesus-loving people live like missionaries in their local community through prayer, equipping, collaboration, and service.
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