Spiritual Blindness and Politics

(I haven't done any political blogging in over a year. This post will be the first in a series.)

Scripture has a simple view of politics.

This view is based on the claims that most adults are spiritually blinded by God. As with the generation of ancient Israelites who came out of Egypt, people who do not desire God and pursue other goals will eventually be abandoned by God and subsequently unable to see God's truth (Romans 1:20-25, John 12:36-43). This not irrevocable: if such a person turns to God then God will restore the ability to see (Second Corinthians 3:14-16). However, more often a blinded person allows sin or Satan to reinforce the blindness (John 9:35-41, Second Corinthians 4:2-4).

Thus the normally proper response of Yeshua's followers to people with a spiritually blinded lifestyle is to live separate from them but be kind when relating to them, and let God and the government deal with their wickedness (First Peter 2:11-15, Romans 12:9-13:7).

We should notice that although scripture often speaks against specific, wicked acts and instructs God's people to avoid these, scripture has no interest in discussing a wicked lifestyle because blinded eyes are something God deals with personally.

A lifestyle that is not godly is simply not the business of God's people. Scriptural narratives often include people with a wicked lifestyle but scripture spends no time analyzing it. God's people are simply told to not participate in it and to appeal to God for help if it is persecuting them.

The only instances in which God's people do need to get involved is when they are part of the government, for government is God's tool to manage those whom he blinded. Within ancient Israel, where the society consisted entirely of God's people, there should be no wicked lifestyles. Anyone who has one should be stoned as a deterrent (Deuteronomy 21:21). For any other society scripture provides no guidance since it never considers that one of God's people could be part of the government.

Unfortunately, this scriptural perspective is rare to find in practice in America. It is much easier and more comfortable for Yeshua's followers to be political creatures spending time being opposed to wicked lifestyles (especially lifestyles they will seldom directly encounter) than to be holy creatures transformed by God through spending time in discipleship.