Should the Bible Be Used To Guide the Government? – 1

I would imagine this question is one of the most hotly debated issues in our nation today.  Those in opposition to it assume that the case should be closed without any further discussion.  The rest of us believe it is a conversation we should continue to be having because we have continued to get it wrong.  And I think the reason we continue to get it wrong is because people have the wrong assumption in view of the question.

Most often I hear skeptics among us argue against the Bible being used to guide government because such would imply legislating Christianity.  I want to say unequivocally here and now that I am opposed to legislating Christianity into our society.  For those who would question my intention let me explain myself in two ways:

• If we gave civil government the right to legislate Christianity into our society they would inevitably get it wrong.  It would never be New Testament Christianity.  How many New Testament Christians do you know in government?  If government had the power to legislate Christianity into society it would likely be an empty shadow of what Christianity is really supposed to be.

• Government should not have the right to force anything into our lives that God Himself refuses to force upon us.  God created us to be free moral agents, or people of choice.  He obviously wants us to follow after Him and be Christians but He is not going to force us to do so.  He wants our submission to Him to be voluntary, sacrificial.  Just as God has made us to be a people of free choice in whether we follow after Him, government should allow the same.

So for these two reasons I am opposed to government legislating Christianity into society as a forced entity.  However, there is a difference between using the Bible to legislate Christianity into society and using it as the guiding force to set the parameters in which civil society must function.

Whether a person wants to admit it or not the Bible is the supreme standard of right and wrong.  It has legislated in matters of morality, the primary parameters in which a society must function for it to be civil.  Since God’s word is the sum total of truth (John 17:17) it is not only right but it is necessary for those in civil authority to use that truth as the pattern by which they make decisions. 

It actually is very similar to the manner by which elders in a local congregation function.  They have the responsibility to make decisions in setting policy for that congregation, but every decision they make must be made within the parameters of right and wrong as legislated by God.  Elders cannot call something that God has already called wrong right, nor can they call something God has already called right wrong.  They must accept right and wrong as already defined by Supreme authority and set policy according to its direction.

Why is it not the case that civil government can and should function as the leadership of a nation in setting policy but doing so within the parameters of right and wrong already legislated by God?  It may not be popular, but allowing Biblical truth to be used in guiding government is the only way that a nation can guarantee it will be right in a world that is otherwise gone wrong.

-Andy Brewer