Editorial: Like It or Not, We Can’t Avoid Politics
Almost every time an article in Adventist Today mentions some matter that politicians discuss, we get angry responses.
It doesn’t matter if it is behavior addressed directly in the Bible. It could even be something Jesus himself talks about. If a politician has an opinion on it, we are criticized for mentioning it.
Yet biblical ethics and politics overlap. They both involve people making decisions about behavior, in the face of laws. It was true in the first century, and it is still true.
Back in Paul’s day, one issue was whether or not you were willing to offer a pinch of incense in worship to the emperor, who was considered a god. Some did it, thinking it better to compromise and stay out of jail. Others took the punishment for refusing. Idol worship might seem like a personal decision, but idols were everywhere, even in food markets. Paul created a riot just by preaching against them, and the case went to the authorities! These were divisive political questions in the church.
Adventist pioneers, too, were political: they took stands on contentious issues such as abolition of slavery, alcohol prohibition, and immigration.
With regard to personal behavior, there are principles that should guide how you act: the Ten Commandments, say, and the Golden Rule, with some flexibility within those larger guidelines. Some principles are enforced by laws, but most are left up to you. For example, you probably won’t go to jail if you have sexual relationships outside of the promises you’ve made to yourself or others, but there could be other consequences—possibly even eternal ones.
What rules should politicians make for how citizens must behave? That we shouldn’t murder a person in cold blood or steal their possessions seems to be agreed upon by most people. Others, such as aborting a 3-week-old fertilized human egg, or deporting immigrant families that have been here a long time, are controversial.
Then there are the politicians themselves. Must a politician personally behave (to use a word coined by my friend Reinder Bruinsma) “Christianly”? Not all of the leading lights of the Old Testament were very good people—some serve us best as cautionary examples. Yet in the New Testament, didn’t Jesus model the idea that our personal actions and our teachings should match? That’s why he leveled the charge of hypocrisy against the Jewish “church” of his day.
Can a scoundrel advance good laws? Possibly—though history shows that scoundrels usually make laws that benefit themselves and their friends, and care little about the suffering of others.
I hope this is something we can learn to discuss, because we need to know how to address those places where politics and Christianity overlap.
Loren Seibold
Executive Editor, Adventist Today Magazine & Website
8 March 2025
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