The Truth Manifesto

Three out of four Americans say they believe in God with the vast majority identifying themselves as Christian. However, the country is highly divided, the 2008 presidential election resulting in a near 50/50 split. Tempers have flared amidst a plethora of T.E.A. parties, town hall meetings, and media wrangling that’s unprecedented.

One of the main and least repeated facts concerning the ideological war between conservatism and liberalism is God’s influence in shaping each worldview.

According to Barna Research:

• Six out of ten conservatives say their faith is becoming an increasingly important moral guide compared to just three out of ten for liberals.

• Liberalism has almost six times as many atheists, agnostics, and general unbelievers than conservatives.

• 63% of conservatives believe the Bible to be accurate in the tenets it teaches to just 27% of liberals.

• 63% of conservatives were categorized as “born again” versus 32% of liberals.

• Conservatives are seven times more likely than liberals to identify themselves as evangelical Christians.

Politics is a smokescreen in the battle between conservatism and liberalism. It’s not about politics. It’s about God.

As one of those conservative Christians, this doesn’t come as a surprise since the Bible speaks specifically about this coming down the pike:

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.  For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. (2 Timothy 3:1-5)

When we look at the ideology of liberalism which supports such positions as abortion, euthanasia, and homosexuality, only two things can happen. You have to redefine and reinterpret the Bible so that it supports your position and therefore creating God in the image you want Him to be, or get rid of the Bible and God altogether, therefore strengthening the evil positions the philosophy is steeped in. Liberals have tried to do both and continue to do so with more of the latter.

I have said this before and I will say it again: there is no way you can be a true Christian and a true liberal. Not possible. Never gonna happen. Liberalism is anathema to the Christian worldview. Always has been, always will be.

So don’t be fooled by those who profess to be a liberal and a Christian. Challenge them with the truth of the scriptures. That will always be the litmus test of where they stand in the grand scheme of things.

Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:  And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. (1 John 4:1a,2-3)

Politics and religion. The Malatov cocktail of clashing ideologies. Two things that most would rather not talk about. To this day, people still adhere to the old saying that you can’t mix the two. Yet from a Christian perspective, not only is this is an unbiblical view, it’s many times sinful.

I don’t know how many times I’ve run across Christian groups or forums that talk about scripture but frown about talking about politics because they have a faulty, unbiblical belief that there’s a ’separation between church and state’, a lie that they’ve grasped a hold of with the secularists that use it to stifle the freedom of a person to exercise their religion.

When we break down the two camps, politics and religion, and strip them to what they are, we begin to see that they are inextricably intertwined and can never be separated from one another.

Politics is the science of government and government is to exercise rule or authority over a person or group of persons. Religion is a system by which we believe that a supernatural being (for a Christian that’s Jesus the Christ, God in the flesh) is the one that makes the rules and governs the whole world. Now if you’re paying attention, you can clearly see that there’s gonna be trouble in River City for the person of true faith when the laws made by man contradicts the laws made by God.

The two major political camps in the United States, Republican and Democrat, are really just window dressing on how an individual should be governed or have authority exercised over them. What we should really be saying though is liberalism and conservatism because that’s where the real battle is and it all boils down to the foundation of how someone believes we should be governed. Those foundations are based on two simple principles: with and without God. Secular humanism versus moral deism.

Most people never ask the question why they believe the way they believe. They’ve never really sat down and worked out the details. To them, ignorance is bliss and following the crowd is a whole lot easier than formulating a true foundation on which to live. They take the path of least resistance as long as it doesn’t mess with their lives.

Yet as a Christian, this is not how God would want us to think. Politics and religion are two systems that you can’t separate from one another and the scriptures prove it. Let me give you just a couple of examples:

Exodus 1:15-22

Here the midwives disobeyed a political decree by the Pharaoh because he had instituted infanticide against the male children of the Hebrews. Their reason: they feared God.

Exodus Chapters 5 through 14

Moses stands against the Pharaoh to free the children of Israel from hard bondage and slavery, much like the move that Republicans made in the United States to free blacks from unjust slavery. The reason Moses did it: God told him to do it.

1 Kings 18

Elijah the prophet stands against the prophets of Baal, a political move since they had been given free reign by edict of the king and the queen. God’s prophets were not allowed to live and were hunted and killed by queen Jezebel. Elijah stood against them, compelled by the word of God.

The Book of Jeremiah

Jeremiah was another prophet that spoke against the evil of that day and was put in stocks and thrown in jail because of it.

Acts 4:1-23

The apostles Peter and John are arrested because of preaching Christ. They are ordered, by law (all politics) not to preach Christ. Yet Peter and John boldly proclaimed, “But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.”

Acts 6:8 – 7:60

Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian faith, stands against the Sanhedrin, the Jewish political body of that day and criticizes them of their sin and evil. He’s subsequently stoned because of it.

Jesus the Christ

The Son of the living God is crucified and dies for the sins of the world, and action that is brought about through the political process of that day because He dared to say that He was God, point out their hypocrisy, sin, and evil hearts, and threatened the authority the political leaders of that day because his words carried more weight than their’s.

Separation of church and state. As Christians that is simply a false statement because the church should be influencing the state. The state is simply people. It’s our job to stand against the evil in the world as well as spread the gospel. James said it best:

What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. (James 2:14 – 19)

So before you write off discussing what’s going on politically today as if it has nothing to do with us Christians, or if you’re on the opposite side thinking that your faith is just a private thing and you shouldn’t mention it as the foundation of what’s right and wrong, think again.

God begs to differ.

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