The Narrow Mission of the Religious Right

Roland Martin posted an excellent op-ed on CNN.com.

An African-American pastor I know in the Midwest was asked by a group of mostly white clergy to march in an anti-abortion rally. He was fine with that, but then asked the clergy if they would work with him to fight crack houses in predominantly black neighborhoods.

“That's really your problem,” he was told.

They saw abortion as a moral imperative, but not a community ravaged by crack.

If abortion and gay marriage are part of the Christian agenda, I have no issue with that. Those are moral issues that should be of importance to people of the faith, but the agenda should be much, much broader.

Most people would consider me a member of the religious right. I am pro-life, fairly politically conservative (and vote Republican more often than not, although I am not tied to the party), opposed the demythologization of the Bible, and so on. Generally speaking, that descriptor fits me better than any other that comes to mind politically. I'm Christian and I'm on the right of the political spectrum. OK. Another term people might use is “Evangelical,” which in today's culture is essentially synonymous with the first term.

With that in mind, I think this gentleman is right on the money. While I think abortion is one of the central moral issues of this present time period, that does not mean Christians are allowed to avoid all of the other issues. It does not excuse us from needing to exert a positive force in our communities. I think this is even truer when the issue is Homosexuality. While abortion is concerned with saving lives, when we seek to fight against “homosexual rights” we are merely fighting against one sin among many. While I agree that it is a sin, does a homosexual ever change his or her ways or, more importantly, come to Christ because we attempt to oppose the homosexual political action committees?

Our primary — and, really, only — allegiance is to Christ. If our politicking prevents one person from accepting the Gospel, we ought to suspend it. It would be much better for us to live in a country where our “rights” as Christians were stepped on and the government did what it wanted (it will anyway) than for Christians to be associated with moralism instead of the Gospel.

At Covenant Seminary there is a big focus on putting the indicatives (the Gospel of Grace) before the imperatives (how we should reform our morals and other things God requires of us). I think when we focus on a sin, such as homosexuality, to the exclusion of evangelism, helping the poor, and so on, we are putting the imperatives before the indicatives. We are yelling, “Evil world, reform! By our political savvy we will make you reform! Oh, and once you do, you'd be welcome to come to church and learn about Jesus.” Instead, we should say, “Come and know Jesus!” Once people know Christ, He and He alone will be able to reform the individual into His plan for him or her.

This mixup of indicatives and imperatives is precisely why Evangelical means little more than “religious right” these days. We are so focused on the imperatives as they translate into political action, our central message is lost in the noise of our vain attempts at national righteousness.

On Easter, and everyday, may we resolve to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified!