Mark 10:2-5 “The Pharisees came and asked Him, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" testing Him. (3) And He answered and said to them, "What did Moses command you?" (4) They said, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce, and to dismiss her." (5) And Jesus answered and said to them, "Because of the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept.”
So what about Christian political parties? There are many Christians that make the error of trying to enforce the norms of God’s kingdom on this world. One of the ways they do this is to start Christian political parties in which they then claim that they will govern society through Christian norms. God Himself however never did this, for we see in the above passage of scripture that Jesus taught the Jews that God set different standards for the Jews to those that He set for His church. The reason God did that was because He understood that those in the world have hardness in their hearts that prevents them from being able to live by His norms. And so God gave them watered down principles that they could live by. In a number of nations in the world today there are so called Christian democratic parties. Many of the leaders in those parties are genuine and sincere in their desire to govern their nations according to Christian values and can therefore not see the error of their way. They don’t recognise that by placing the name “Christian” in their party’s title that they immediately create division in the nation, because they alienate all other religions and atheists by ensuring that they won’t vote for them, even if they share similar conservative values. Sadly some of the Christian parties even try to shame fellow Christians into voting for them because they are a “Christian” party, again causing division even within the church. Many of these parties also blaspheme the name of Christ by supporting some policies that are against Christian norms, thus making the world believe that these are in fact the norms of Christ. So what is the solution? Political parties that are led by Christians should advocate values that conservatives in the world are able to embrace, but they should not try to enforce Christian norms and they should definitely not include the word “Christian” in their name.
Michael E.B. Maher
Commenti