10 Truths About Christians And Politics

Coral Ridge Ministries
Dr. D. James Kennedy, Founder

From the 10 Truths Series
TRUTH #10 - The Most Political Act Is to Win Someone to Faith in Christ

He was young, smart, wealthy, and the life of every party. Elected to the British Parliament in 1780 at age 21, William Wilberforce was a much-in-demand man about town who delighted and regaled fellow revelers with his wit and sparkling conversation.

He “won his welcome to the luxurious clubs and great private houses,” writes biographer John Pollock, “because he was rich, he was amusing, could turn a bon mot and had a keen sense of the ludicrous.”

A stirring orator, he used his eloquence and incandescent personality to win political office and had no greater aim in life, he later said, than his own fame—what he called “his darling object.” But after this lively young man of promise spent long hours debating Christianity with a traveling companion and former tutor, Isaac Milner, what Wilberforce called his “great change” began to take place. By late 1785, he had embraced evangelical Christianity.

Leave Politics?
His first impulse was to retire from politics—considered by most evangelicals of his day to be worldly and to be avoided. But a conversation with John Newton, the former slave ship captain turned minister, who is best known for writing “Amazing Grace,” helped change his mind. He told the young man not to leave politics. As Newton later put it in a letter to Wilberforce, “It is hoped and believed that the Lord has raised you up for the good of His church and for the good of the nation.”

Wilberforce soon reached the conclusion that God had indeed called him to pursue two great goals: the abolition of the slave trade and the reformation of the low state of British morals. He set after his twin ambitions with enormous energy. By the end of his life, his goals had largely been achieved. His persistent call to end the British slave trade finally won approval in Parliament in 1807, and in 1833, only three days before his death, the House of Commons abolished slavery throughout the British Empire, bringing freedom to some 800,000 slaves.

The impact Wilberforce made on Britain’s moral climate was almost equally great. “It is a matter of history,” states his biographer, “that for two generations, at least, after Wilberforce, the British character was molded by attitudes that were essentially his. Under his leadership, a Christian social conscience attacked prevalent social ills while at the same time seeking to better the lives of those affected by them.”

Isaac Milner could not have known what he had set in motion while discussing Christianity with Wilberforce on their way to the French-Italian Riviera. His willingness to present the case for Christianity impacted not just one life, but millions. As C. S. Lewis once said, “He who converts his neighbour has performed the most practical Christian-political act of all.”

One Conversion Can Shake a Nation
Wilberforce does not stand alone, however, as an example of how conversion can bring political change. Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos threw rival politician Benigno Aquino into prison in 1972. There he met Christ, after reading the story of Charles Colson’s conversion in his book, Born Again. C. S. Lewis

Aquino, a darling of the people, had first been elected to office at age 22. He was later exiled to the United States, but decided to return in 1983 to lead a peaceful resistance to the corrupt Marcos regime. When his plane touched down in Manila, soldiers arrived to take him off the plane, and within seconds he was dead. The impact of his life did not end with his death. Aquino’s political assassination, mourned by two million people who walked in the rain to his funeral, set in motion not a bloody revolution, but the famed “people power” uprising that led to Marcos’ ouster and the introduction of democratic government in the Philippines. “One can never quite calculate how one conversion like Benigno Aquino’s in a lowly prison cell,” Colson writes, “may set in motion a train of events to shake a nation.”

As a co-founder of the Moral Majority, Dr. D. James Kennedy was a passionate advocate for Christian civic involvement to “reclaim America for Christ.” He was also the founder of the world’s most-used method for telling others about Christ. He understood that evangelism can achieve what politics alone cannot. “We Christians will never impose biblical morality on a predominantly non-Christian culture,” he wrote. “It will not happen. They will rise up and throw it off.” It is only when Christians “share the Gospel with others that individual lives—and ultimately, cultures—are transformed by the power of Christ and His Word.”

Saving Souls Saves the Nation
Nineteenth century American evangelicals understood the link between the gospel and politics. A Library of Congress exhibit, “Religion and the Founding of the American Republic” reports that “converting their fellow citizens to Christianity was, for them, an act that simultaneously saved souls and saved the republic.” The American Home Missionary Society told supporters in 1826 that “we are doing the work of patriotism no less than Christianity.” Voting, lobbying, volunteering for political campaigns, even running for office, are all important. They are all part of our duty to Caesar, but they cannot take the place of our duty to God—to bring Christ’s message of forgiveness and freedom from sin to those whom we meet every day. When we do that, the gospel will work its way into every area and yield enormous dividends, eternal and temporal, in both private and public life.

As was stated in the Introduction, we cannot wait for a new generation of leaders to rise up and lead us. Each of us must take responsibility for carrying out our own Christian civic duty in the arena of government and politics. Each of us is responsible to daily share with others the wonderful message of Christ’s deliverance from sins. Our prayer is that this little booklet has helped you understand more clearly how you can enter the arena, for “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (I John 4:4b).