How Can Evangelicals Embrace the Republican Party and Capitalism?

Over the past 30-40 years, the Religious Right has gone from total noninvolvement with politics to total involvement to partial domination. As a general matter, and more specifically in recent years, they have endorsed capitalism and the concept that each person is responsible for himself, they have endorsed a limited role for government, and they have tenaciously fought for the right to life of the unborn and against same-sex marriage or any kind of gay rights that gives homosexuals the approval of society. And they have become the backbone of the new radical Republican Party.

As Christians who believe in Jesus, Evangelicals are fond of saying that we need to bring morality back into our government and our private lives, and that we need to bring God back into our government. But do they practice what they preach?

What is the most central ethic of Christianity, or indeed of all the world’s great religions? It is, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It is, “Love they neighbor as thyself.” It is viewing the community of man as one of shared responsibility. From the Old Testament’s, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” to the many affirmative answers to that question in the New Testament such as that we are to “love one another” and that we are to “serve one another,” “bear one another’s burdens,” and “consider one another,” there is no question that to be Christian is to support the idea of a social contract among the citizens of our country. It is in this light that I will examine the positions taken by Evangelicals on several key contemporary issues.

First, let’s look at capitalism. ... (see blog)

Then there is the issue of public morality. ... (see blog)

But the issues of abortion and homosexuality are digressions. The point is that if one wants a more moral nation, a more moral government, a nation under God, then many aspects of our system need to be changed. First and foremost would be changing from a capitalist system in which everyone is chiefly out for themselves with no sense of responsibility for their fellow citizen to a system of regulated capitalism and a commonly accepted social contract with government performing its function of leveling the playing field, guaranteeing that all have the opportunity to pursue their “inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

The Democratic Party, in its own sometimes fumbling way, is trying to reach for that more moral nation. As such, it deserves the support of all God-believing people and secular humanists alike.

For the complete blog post and posts on other issues, see my blog http://PreservingAmericanGreatness.blogspot.com