Thread by @HenrySBTS

Political Catechism #1:

Question: What confession ought the Christian make before any commitment to a political ideology, party, or institution?

Answer: Jesus Christ is Lord. There is no salvation apart from him. All authority is his and all persons and nations are obligated to bow their knee to his Lordship (Ps. 2; Phil. 2:10-22; Acts 4:12).

Political Catechism #2

Question: What is God's purpose for the state?

Answer: The proper end of any earthly government is to uphold justice and secure the basic rights of all human beings, promote the common good, and restrain and punish evil deeds committed by God’s image-bearers against each other.

Political Catechism #3

Question: What is the relationship between love of neighbor and politics?

Answer: Politics exists for the sake of organizing society by exemplifying neighborly love through encouraging humanity's cooperation in the pursuit of their mutual flourishing by means of shared, God-ordained institutions in their communities to maintain the created order.

Political Catechism #4

Question: How should Christians relate to the state?

Answer: Christians are to be Scripturally-faithful citizens who view the state as a legitimate extension of God’s authority on earth established for their and society’s welfare. They must ensure that it keeps to its temporal jurisdiction and not ascribe to it sacred authority.

Political Catechism #5

Question: What ought to be the relationship between the church and state?

Answer: The state aims to achieve temporal peace so that the gospel might spread, rightly protecting the freedom of the church to fulfill the Great Commission. In response, the church respects the civil powers granted to the state by pursuing righteousness in humble citizenship.

Political Catechism #6

Question: What is the Common Good and why is it important to public theology?

Answer: The Common Good is the set of conditions in society allowing individuals and groups to flourish respective of their purpose. The Common Good facilitates and promotes an order of justice. Christians should pursue the Common Good as an ethic of loving social responsibility.

Political Catechism #7

Question: What role does the state play in the relationship between the common good and the spiritual good?

Answer: The state plays an indirect role in citizens obtaining spiritual good. Promoting access to the common good only, the state gives space to citizens to discern and pursue the spiritual good. The state removes impediments to the spiritual good by upholding the common good.

Political Catechism #8

Question: What is religious liberty? Answer: The principle where individuals, regardless of religious confession, are equally free to believe, or not to believe, 1/2

and to live out their understanding of the conscience’s duty, individually and communally, that is owed to God in all areas of life without the threat of government penalty or social harassment. 2/2

Political Catechism #9

Q: What is the relationship between religious liberty and public theology?

A: Religious liberty reveals how temporal authority understands its relationship and jurisdiction to eternal authority. Religious liberty is thus revelatory and presuppositional to how religion and politics relate in a given context.

Political Catechism #10

Question: What is authority?

Answer: Authority is the legitimate office given by God to a person or entity to oversee and fulfill a task consistent with its calling. All earthly authority is derived and ordered by God; it is not absolute or sovereign. Jesus has ultimate authority (John 19:11; Matt. 28:18).

Political Catechism #11

Question: What is Common Grace and why is it important for Christian political reflection?

Answer: Common grace teaches that God restrains the sinful consequences of humanity in order to allow for stable political order. Common grace allows for social cooperation toward good ends despite sin and despite deep moral and religious disagreement in society (Gen. 8:20-9:17).

Political Catechism #12

Question: Does the state have legitimate authority in the life of the Christian?

Answer: Yes, the state is a “servant” and “minister” of God (Rom. 13:1-7), an instrument of common grace, to oversee the conditions of a just society. Christians should honor and respect the state and comply with its laws insofar as it does not command disobedience to God.

Political Catechism #13

Question: Does the state have total authority over a person's life?

A: No, the state is under God’s authority with jurisdiction only on affairs pertaining to temporal matters. The state is powerless to cause religious belief, so neither should it impede religious belief. The state protects only the conditions that foster an orderly common good.

Political Catechism #14

Q: What is justice?

A: Justice is a state of affairs rightly ordered. Justice is fulfilled when any circumstance and action align with eternal law, natural law, and human law. Justice rejects and is thwarted by irrational actions, unfair procedures, biased standards, and exploitative circumstances.

Political Catechism #15

Q: What is prudence and why is it a necessary political virtue?

A: Prudence clarifies matters clearly commanded and prohibited in Scripture from matters where no obvious clarity exists. Prudence dictates the need for wisdom. As not all unwise political decisions are necessarily unjust, so neither are all political decisions necessarily wise.

Political Catechism #16

Q: What was Jesus’ attitude toward the government?

A: Jesus’s life reveals that he thought of government as fallen, legitimate, provisional, and accountable. He did not renounce the authority of the government but subordinated it to its earthly jurisdiction only (Matt. 22:15-22; John 18:33-40; Rev. 11:15).

Political Catechism #17

Question: Are human rights compatible with Christian thought?

Answer: Yes, biblically speaking, a right exists to protect a God-honoring duty. As humans have a duty to, for example, speak truthfully, live truthfully, and worship truthfully, a right exists that protects the exercise of the faculty to accomplish those duties.

Political Catechism #18

Question: Where are human rights rooted in Christian thought?

Answer: Human rights originate in humanity being made in God’s image. Because humanity bears a unique relationship to God in ways distinct from other parts of creation, this special status confers protections and freedoms consistent with God’s design for human nature.

Political Catechism #19

Question: What is freedom?

Answer: Freedom is the ability to do what one ought. Freedom protects individuals to live out the duties pressed upon them by their conscience. Because human agents are limited and fallible, we allow the misuse of freedom to ensure broad protections for the proper use of freedom.

Political Catechism #20

Question: Is it appropriate for the Christian faith to inform and influence one’s political worldview?

Answer: Yes, Christian engagement with the world is built on profoundly important presuppositions about human flourishing. Christian truths related to such topics as family, justice, authority, and morality are very important for public consideration.

Political Catechism #21

Question: Is it appropriate for a religious presupposition to influence political and policy debate?

Answer: Insofar as the issue at stake is something that is foundational, intelligible, applicable, and necessary to the ordering of a just society for all persons, yes. Differing premises or moral foundations that result in a shared conclusion testify to the natural law.

Political Catechism #22

Question: Is there a connection between the noetic effects of the Fall and political theology?

Answer: Yes. The consequences of the Fall should remind Christians that no government is free from the corrupting effects of sin and that our ultimate hope for redemption is in Christ and Christ alone; not in worldly government, political ideology, or earthly power.

Political Catechism #23

Question: What is the relationship between justice and rights?

Answer: Rights protect what is justly owed to persons. Justice is present when each individual is afforded the protections necessary to, and consistent with, their flourishing.

Political Catechism #24

Question: Should the gathered church ever speak to earthly political matters?

Answer: Only in exceptional circumstances is it advisable or permissible that the gathered church make political pronouncements. Rather, the church should more generally proclaim the standards of divine justice necessary for establishing the foundations of public righteousness.

Political Catechism #25

Q: What is natural law and why is it important for Christian political thought?

A: The idea that God created a universal moral order and that acts of reason—in theory and in practice—can grasp as intellectually knowable and behaviorally directive. Natural law provides an account of public and personal morality that all persons, in principle, could agree on.

Political Catechism #26

Q: Are the Ten Commandments, though in the Old Testament, still relevant to our understanding of public theology?

A: Yes, commands 5-10 are commonly identified with the natural law and relate to the spheres of political authority, the sanctity of life, the sanctity of the family, property rights, truthfulness, and personal integrity. No society that jettisons these truths will be just.

Political Catechism #27

Q: How does an individual Christian understand their political obligations and activities as distinct from the gathered church's political obligations and activities?

A: The individual Christian may engage in a variety of partisan political activities and make particularized political judgments, though never avowedly against Scripture, that would typically be outside the gathered church’s competence and authorized jurisdiction.

Political Catechism #28

Q: What moral factors should a Christian consider when voting?

A: Christians should vote with wisdom, justice, & public righteousness in view and should apply symmetrical moral analysis to all policies, candidates, & platforms. A Christian should abstain from voting where the conscience detects cooperation with an intended injustice.

Political Catechism #29

Q: Is disobedience to the government ever justified?

A: Yes, insofar as government compels Christians to violate their conscience and unambiguously sin against God’s Word, Christians are justified to disobey. Christians should accept the consequences of their disobedience, and work to reform government in a just direction.

Political Catechism #30

Q: Is there a hierarchy of moral concerns that should guide how a Christian votes?

A: Christians should never vote to knowingly codify or perpetuate known injustice and should vote to see instances of injustice eradicated. Christians should have a special concern for public justice, religious liberty, protecting the natural family, and sound public morality.

Political Catechism #31

Q: Does Scripture command a particular form of government?

A: No, Scripture witnesses to a multitude of governmental forms (monarchy, oligarchy, democracy) that appear legitimate insofar as justice is upheld. Christians should exercise prudence about the best form of government to ensure the common good and social stability.

Political Catechism #32

Q: What does it mean to be political?

A: It means to be both an individual agent and a member of various institutions within a society organized under a rightful authority whose judgments allow for these variegated institutions to direct themselves toward their particular purpose.

Political Catechism #33

Q: Are Christians commanded to be good citizens?

A: Yes, Christians are called to honor their authorities, obey laws, and live justly. Citizenship in an earthly polis should not subvert, conflict, or be confused with one’s heavenly citizenship. Christians are to seek the welfare of their community.

Political Catechism #34

Q: Must an elected official be a Christian to rule justly?

A: No, justice is recognizable to all within God’s created order and elected officials are able to discern what is just according to natural law principles. Magistrates are expressly enabled in this way since they must steward society under the aegis of common grace.

Political Catechism #35

Q: Are national and earthly political loyalties incompatible with Christian faith?

A: No, God places us where we are (Acts 17:26). As Paul appealed to his heavenly citizenship (Phil 3) and his Romans citizenship (Acts 22), so can we order our loyalties accordingly. We are called to dwell richly where we are (Jer 29) even as we seek another city (Heb 11).

Political Catechism #36

Q: Is political participation a form of worldly compromise?

A: No. Political engagement is a worthwhile pursuit. Though fallen, politics is a legitimate sphere of God’s providence. The presence of Christians helps political orders understand and attain their fullest possible horizons for justice, human flourishing, and the common good.

Political Catechism #37

Q: What is the concept of "subsidiarity" and why is it important to Christian political reflection about the common good?

A: The Christian concept of subsidiarity understands the common good most local as affording the greatest impact and resolution (e.g., if a family member needs to be cared for, the person's family should care for them, not immediately the government).

Political Catechism #38

Q: Should Christian participation in earthly political order necessarily result in cultural transformation?

A: No. While influencing culture is possible and should be pursued, given the nature of sin and ideological and religious pluralism, Christian political participation is one primarily of active, alert, faithful engagement, not promised transformation.

Political Catechism #39

Q: What is the role of the pastor in shaping the Christian political imagination?

A: The role of the pastor is to faithfully expound upon the Scriptures in such a way that transformed consciences live and vote in accordance with the moral righteousness of God’s character revealed in His Word.

Political Catechism #40

Q: What are the necessary political virtues for Christians to possess?

A: Wisdom in judgment, justice in affairs, courage of conviction, consistency of principle, gentleness in answer, empathy toward neighbors, capaciousness in understanding.

One question left...

Election Day Political Catechism

Q: In summary, what is the Christian political ethic?

A: Remembering that Jesus Christ is the true King of kings, Christians should pursue wisdom, justice, & righteousness for the sake of the temporal common good with a view towards recognizing how God has ordered & preserved the world for our good, & ultimately, for His glory.

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