A Truthful Society – The Law of God and Public Policy: The Good Society (6)

A Truthful Society

The Law of God and Public Policy: The Good Society (6)

A good society can only exist on the foundation of stable truth.

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 1 Timothy 2:1-4

Undoubtedly, all who serve or have interest in public policy matters in our country would insist that they are concerned that truth should be the guiding norm in all their deliberations and decisions. No politician in a free society ever made much headway in his career by promising to lie to and deceive the electorate.

The question is not, therefore, whether we shall be a society founded on truth. The question is, rather, which view of truth will obtain in the public square.

In our day pragmatism and relativism occupy the commanding heights of truth and are directing all the public policy battles according to changeable tenets of right and wrong. The challenge to the Christian is to recognize the false pretenses on which public policy today is being developed and to challenge the viability of pragmatism and relativism for enabling government to fulfill its God-given mandate. It’s not enough for Christians to weigh in on particular issues. We need to challenge the very foundations on which politicians and others pursue making policies that will guide the affairs of our nation and, in a very real sense, define our very lives.

Here is where it is very important that Christians should be especially active in the public-policy arenas of conversation and publication. While we will also want to be ready to participate in making public policy—if only as members of the electorate: “we the people”—the greater and more enduring victories in establishing a sure and stable foundation of truth will be won in our conversations with neighbors and friends and in our efforts to expose the flimsiness of contemporary views of truth, and to establish the Biblical view, through the various media outlets available to us.

We will only be putting band-aids on an open, oozing sore if all we ever do is augur for decisions from legislatures and courts that reflect our understanding of truth applied to the public square. Yes, of course, we must struggle in this arena continually. But the great challenge facing us today is the challenge of which foundation shall support our nation’s policies in the years to come. Apologists for a secular worldview are busily at work, reconstructing every aspect of life in our society on a foundation other than that which our forebears laid. While we still have freedom to proclaim the Gospel and to argue—winsomely and respectfully—for the Biblical view of truth, we must prepare ourselves and encourage one another to take up this task day by day, through every open door of opportunity, with a view to exposing the folly of unbelief and demonstrating the firmness of a Biblical approach to truth.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.