Evangelical Politics at the Crossroads
Nick Lantinga
October 1, 1996
Although most evangelicals agree that politics should not be left to the devil, much intellectual work remains. Politicos of right and left often deliver "prophetic" pronouncements in place of the gritty details of public policy. The inside joke is that the modus operandi of evangelicals is "Ready, Fire, Aim," with the result that they indiscriminately attack both friend and foe. The Crossroads program, an academic program co-sponsored by Evangelicals for Social Action (esa) and the Center for Public Justice (cpj), attempts to return evangelical political thinking-and hence action-to respectability. Crossroads' fourth annual conference in July, which consisted of debates, addresses, and presentations on more than twenty different policy areas, provided a healthy antidote to evangelicals' scandalous neglect of the political mind. Disagreement surfaced, however, on many fundamental issues that confront evangelical political involvement. Althoughthere were broad areas of agreement on many policy questions, issues surrounding education and welfare reform provoked sharp dissent: should Christians support "pervasively religious" institutions distinct from the state, argue for increased involvement between such organizations and the state, or fully support the state alone? These disagreements at the policy level reveal a serious divide. On one hand are Christians suspicious of governmental force, particularly lethal force. Anabaptists and other like-minded Christians seek a faith uncompromised by association with morally dubious political powers. On the other hand are Calvinist and some Lutheran Christians who, while distinguishing state from church, work within politics to make that sphere reflect God's will. This divide roughly corresponds ...
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