Most evangelical Christian conservatives I know would at least be uneasy about the prospect of the government picking up the slack of caring for the poor due to Christians' abdication of their role in society as dictated by Scripture.
In the 20th century, evangelical Christians in America have naively accepted the role assigned to us by an anti-religious, anti-Christian consensus in our society. We have been relegated to a cultural backwater, where we are meant to paddle around content in the knowledge that we are merely allowed to exist.
Jesus refers to the poor over and over again. There are 2,000 verses of Scripture that call upon us to respond to the needs of the poor. And yet, I find that when Christians talked about values in this last election that was not on the agenda, that was not a concern. If you were to get the voter guide of the Christian Coalition, that does not rate. They talk more about tax cuts for people who are wealthy than they do about helping poor people who are in desperate straits.
Frankly, the conservatives need to be better conservatives. Real conservatives actually respect our Constitution and would stand up to an authoritarian. Real conservatives believe in clean, limited government and would stand up to anybody who is basically setting up a kleptocracy, nepotism, and crony capitalism. And real conservatives are actually strong for America and not weak for Russia.
Evangelical Christians and I can sit down and talk one on one about how much we love Jesus, and yet I'm not carried in Christian bookstores.
I think that one of the errors that social conservatives made - particularly Christian social conservatives - was a belief that they needed to use the power of government to try to shore up the various things that they believe make up a life well-lived.
We no longer live in a post-Christian society, we live in an anti-Christian society, one in which the Christian faith is dismissed or ridiculed and Christians are considered suspect and their motives and behavior berated.
I attended an evangelical Christian university on the outskirts of suburban Los Angeles and by the time of my graduation was neither evangelical nor Christian.
Republicans ... are conservatives who think it would be best if we faced the fact that people are no damned good. They think that if we admit that we have selfish, acquisitive natures and then set out to get all we can for ourselves by working hard for it, that things will be better for everyone. They are not insensitive to the poor, but tend to think the poor are impoverished because they won't work. They think there would be fewer of them to feel sorry for if the government did not encourage the proliferation of the least fit among us with welfare programs.
The most likely victim of actual religious discrimination in British society is a Muslim but the person who is most likely to feel slighted because of their religion is an evangelical Christian.
The most likely victim of actual religious discrimination in British society is a Muslim, but the person who is most likely to feel slighted because of their religion is an evangelical Christian.
To be honest about it, that is the view of Christians taken by modern society. Surely those who adhere to all or most of these traditional Christian beliefs are to be regarded as simpleminded.
Most Christians are not convinced of their own faith. I would say 90 percent of Christians do not have a worldview, in other words a view of the world, based on the Scripture and a relationship with God. And so they cannot discern between the truth and falsehood.
When I think about where most of Scripture points me, it is toward defending the poor, and the immigrant, and the stranger, and the prisoner, and the outcast, and those who are left behind by the way society works.
When one considers our nation's educational foundations - Harvard, Yale, Princeton and most of our respected institutions were originally Christian - it becomes evident why we, as Christians, maintain a passion about remaining true to the foundations of Scripture.
Every man is responsible for defending every woman and every child. When the male no longer takes this role, when he no longer has the courage or feels the moral responsibility, then that society will no longer be a society where honor and virtue are esteemed. Laws and government cannot replace this personal caring and commitment. In the absence of the Warrior protector, the only way that a government can protect a society is to remove the freedom of the people. And the sons and daughters of lions become sheep.
Mike Huckabee and indeed many of the Christian conservatives in the U.S. have far more in common with the Muslim Brotherhood than they'd like to admit, in that all of them very much want to see a role of religion in society.