Christian Conservativism: how these two worldviews can co-exist and not contradict

This is the first in what I plan to be a series of posts that deal with a variety issues concerning the conservative movement in America and how a Christian lifestyle and a conservative worldview can co-exist. In this post, I aim to lay out the foundation for the rest of the series. It is important for your understanding of this series that you start with this post.

As a Christian, I believe in God's absolute truth and that his law is the law in which I and everyone else should live. As a conservative, I believe that freedom is the only standard that my government should consider when governing.

This presents a very challenging situation for myself and for the millions of people who fit the above description.


God's law doesn't allow for any wiggle room. If God said to do it then you had better do it. If God said not to do it then had better not do it. But, history has proven time and time again that forcing Christianity on people through political means does not work. Our country was founded because of religious persecution; persecution from a monarchy that was pushing Catholicism on it's subjects. Yes, it was a very perverse form of Catholicism, but it didn't start out that way. So why doesn't this work?

God does not force Himself on the people of Earth, He pursues them.* When Adam and Eve took of the Tree of Knowledge, we gained a limited ability to turn away from God; we gained a free will of sorts. At first, when man would sin, God would directly deal with the guilty party as we see in His dealing with Cain after Cain murdered his brother, Abel. As time went on, God slowly began to remove his direct influence over man and transition His influence to more indirect methods. When King David had one of his soldiers murdered so that he could take the soldier's wife, Bathsheba, as his own, God did not deal with David directly, but instead sent the prophet, Nathan, to confront David's sin. God's actions become even more indirect in the New Testament when Paul laid out rules for the Church to follow when dealing with a member of their church body who is actively and unrepentantly living in sin. God established man to govern man.

Because not all men believe in God or believe that the Word of God is law, a new standard had to be adopted in order to effectively govern man. God's law has not been replaced by the standard of freedom. The Church must still abide by God's law above man's law. But the people who do not claim God's law as their own must be governed somehow. God's Word even tells us that we cannot hold someone who is not of the Faith or who is weak in his faith to the same standard here on Earth. That is God's responsibility, not man's. Their are actions that we, as the Church, must take when dealing with one of our own. But we cannot take these actions when dealing with someone who is not of the Body of Christ.

So, in the United States of America, freedom was chosen as that standard. In order to ensure that man's ability to worship the One True God was not taken away from him, as it had been done in so many other systems of government, the law had to written to allow everyone of all faiths to worship whoever or whatever they please, without fear of persecution from their government.

Freedom, as I see it, means having the ability to do what one pleases, as long as what one pleases does not hinder someone else from doing what he pleases, without fear of being persecuted by one's government.

Many Christians struggle with the difference in something that is illegal and something that is immoral. Something is illegal in United States because it hinders the freedom of another person. Something is immoral because God says that it is immoral. Contrary to what many Christians believe, murder is not illegal in this country because God said, "Thou shalt not kill." Murder is illegal because murdering someone is taking that which belongs to someone else away from him. In this instance, the thing you are taking from him is his life. This is the very same reason that theft is illegal. Murder is simply theft to an extreme.

Engaging in a sexual act with someone who is not my wife is not illegal because it is the act of two consenting adults choosing to engage in that act. Having sex with someone who is not my wife does not hinder anyone's ability to live freely. It is immoral because God said that it is immoral. Telling a lie to your mother does not result in you being prosecuted as criminal and locked up in jail because you have the freedom to speak as you wish. It is, however, immoral because God said, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."

Driving over the posted speed limit is illegal because your carelessness could result in your vehicle attempting to occupy the same space that another vehicle is occupying. This can lead to property damage, personal injury, and death. There is nothing immoral about driving 55 miles per hour in a residential zone. It is, however, immoral to disobey the law of man that has been placed over you, as long as that law does not require you to disobey the law of God. Therefore, driving 55 miles per hour in a residential zone where the speed limit is 25 miles per hours is immoral because you are breaking the established law of man.

I hope this gives you a better understanding of how Christianity and conservatism can co-exist. God's law is law for His people. God's law is not man's law, and man's law is not God's law. Those who are not of the chosen elect cannot be held to God's standards by man. God will hold them to His standards in due time.

The Forum is open, people.

Next: Christian Conservatism: marriage as a Christian practice and as a government institution.

*Undoubtedly, many of you are wondering about my position on predestination of the elect versus man's freewill to choose or deny God. That is not topic for this series, but is one that I plan to address in a future series. I look forward to your comments regarding that topic when I do write about it. For now, please try to keep all comments related directly to the issue that I have presented.

UPDATE: a reader pointed out to me that I may have the definition of conservatism mixed up with libertarianism. My first reaction was to say that even though she is right, most people in America wrongfully assume that conservatism is to push God and morality on people when it actually more closely resembles what I have described above. But, because the reader is my wife, and she's pretty smart, I decided to look it up. Turns out, she's right again.

Conservatism (Latin conservare) is to preserve. So, in fact, my assumption and the assumption that many Americans make are both wrong. Conservatism means to keep things as they are. So, the conservative movement is, by definition, a movement to return to the way things were when our country was founded. I could go on about how this means that conservatives, without knowing that they are saying this, wish to remove a woman's right to vote and to reestablish slavery, but that's ridiculous, of course.

What conservatives aim to do is to return to the principles of freedom that our founding fathers intended for this country to operate under. So, at the heart of the conservative movement is libertarianism, even if those who claim to be conservative do not realize this.

Props to my wife for pointing out the confusion in language used here. Going forward, you'll see the word libertarianism used a lot more.