A Practical Absurdity

If the People of the Vine are going to have an influence in politics and law, I suggest we work harder at encouraging and equipping Christ-loving lawyers, legislators, senators, council members, and mayors to bring biblically-informed minds to work with them on a daily basis, where they can winsomely “connect the dots” with real-life issues related to their everyday professional lives.

I believe the best chance we have of bringing biblically-informed thought and practice into the public square is from the inside out. This is how “salt” functions. It flavors and preserves via permeation.

This is what the integration of faith and work is about. It is the personal outworking of Truth in the business world, the artistic world, the educational world, the entertainment world, and the political-legal world, by those who work in these fields, with no sacred-secular divide, serving the Highest Lord in their professions, and loving the Highest Law. Like Daniel in Babylon. [On this superb model, I recommend Larry Peabody's great book, Job-Shadowing Daniel.]

Can you imagine millions of lawyers, legislators, council members and political executives at all levels bringing biblically-informed minds to work with them on a daily basis, operating with no SSD (Sacred-Secular Divide)?   

It this legal? Of course! As one U.S. Senator said in 2006, it is wrong to ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering the public square. He went on to say that not injecting ‘personal morality’ into public policy debates is a practical absurdity:

 “…secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering the public square. Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King—indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history—were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their ‘personal morality’ into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Juedo-Christian tradition.”

Notice the observation about our law being a “codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.” He was a former law professor at the University of Chicago. He knows. 

This Senator went on to become President of the United States. His name is Barack Obama. [For the full speech, click here.]