The Church: Not Another Interest Group

How can evangelicals best influence the United States of America?

I submit that there is a better answer than the one that would be given by either Chris Matthews or Rush Limbaugh.

The greatest influence evangelical Christians can have upon American society and politics will not come by lobbying Washington, getting out the vote, or doing anything overtly political. The greatest influence evangelical Christians can have upon American society and politics will come through investing themselves in a local church where the gospel is proclaimed, where the Scriptures are faithfully taught, where people understand what regeneration is, and where church discipline draws a clear line between those who live as though they have been born again and those who do not (and when people don’t repent of sin, they live as though they are unregenerate).

At the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in 2006, I presented a paper entitled “The Church Militant and Her Warfare: We Are Not Another Interest Group.” That piece has now appeared in the latest issue of The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology.

My article can be accessed here, and the table of contents of the current issue, on the theme of “Church and State” can be accessed here.

Dr. Russell D. Moore writes:

The SBJT, edited by Southern Baptist theologian Stephen J. Wellum, is an excellent resource for pastors and church leaders. . . . You can (and should!) subscribe here.

You can read Dr. Moore’s essay here.