Do evangelicals want to keep the Bible out of politics?
I don’t currently get the Macleans magazine, but I was quickly looking over an article this morning. It’s a brief overview of their year-end poll. Interestingly enough, one of the things they did this year was focus on a distinct group of Canadians – not Quebecers, but evangelical Christians. I don’t know how “scientific” this poll is, but according to their numbers almost 1/3 of Canadians call themselves evangelical or “born again”. That seems rather high to me, but that’s what they say.
Now after reading that, here’s the next thing they say:
Asked whether political leaders should use their religious beliefs to guide their actions, most Canadians, 65 per cent, said “never,” a number that drops to 49 per cent among evangelicals.
So we’re saying that half of the “evangelicals” (whoever that is) and even more of the general population “believe” that politicians shouldn’t use their religious beliefs to guide their decisions? What in the world are they supposed to use? Now in a democracy, of course, the theory is that some of their decisions will be guided by the people more directly, and the people will have influence in other ways, such as voting them in or out. But seriously, why should these people have convictions about anything? Should they base their decisions on what “feels” nice at the time? On what makes them the most money?
I’d like to give “us” (Canadians) the benefit of the doubt, and suggest that what we’re trying to say is that they shouldn’t let a religious organization make decisions for them, but decide for themselves (there’s been a lot of news in Canada about Catholic leaders, for example, suggesting that political leaders should act a certain way). Ok, I’m all for that, to a point. But let’s face it, everyone has a basis for deciding things, and if it’s not going to be God it’s going to be something else. In other words, even atheism is a religion, and that religion is going to guide the way you think, whether you like it or not.
And remember, 1/2 of the “evangelicals”, supposedly Bible-believing people, are saying this. What do we Christians use to guide our political decisions? Or our every day decisions? I suppose if you look at society, and consider that a huge percentage of us claim to be Christians, you’ll get one answer – it doesn’t seem to be the Bible. We have some changing to do. But what better time of year to start?
