Ron Sider's The Scandal of Evangelical Politics

Tragically, Christian political activity today is a disaster. Christ­ians embrace contradictory positions on almost every political issue. When they join the political fray, they often succumb to dishonesty and corruption. Even when they endorse good goals, they too often promote their political agenda in foolish ways that frighten non-Christians, thus making it more difficult or nearly impossible to achieve important political goals.

At the heart of the problem is the fact that many Christians, especially evangelical Christians, have not thought carefully about how to do politics in a wise, biblically grounded way.

[This] contrasts sharply with what other Christian traditions, especially Catholics, have done. Roman Catholics benefit from over a century of papal encyclicals that have carefully developed and articulated a Catholic ap­proach to public life. Main­line Protes­tants—both through church declarations and the work of brilliant individuals like Rein­hold Nie­buhr—have also de­veloped a substantial collection of careful thought on politics. The evangelical community has simply failed to develop anything comparable.

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Sojourners Magazine February 2008
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