This post is part of a series of posts taken from Dr. Wayne Grudem's Sunday school class at Scottsdale Bible Church. In this class, Dr. Grudem is taking us through his forthcoming book: Politics: According to the Bible. I have created a category link here, which will allow you to scroll through all of the upcoming posts.
Wrong View #1 - Government should compel religion.
Here Dr. Grudem spends just over 30 minutes setting up an understanding of this wrong view. In so doing, he employs the fact that our country was founded by a great many people fleeing compelled religion.
He further goes on to explain that our founding fathers desired that we all be equally free to worship as we choose, and that right should be available to all religions equally.
Further, Grudem cites that Jesus distinguished between the realms of God and of Caesar, Jesus refused to compel people to believe in him, that genuine faith cannot be forced, and that Christ's kingdom is not a worldly kingdom.
Wrong View #2 - Religion should be excluded from government.
This view is the complete opposite of the previous wrong view, in that proponents of this view vigorously oppose any religious expression in a "government" setting whatsoever. We have all seen examples of this with the restriction of valedictorian speeches, controversy with religious expressions on our coins, our government buildings, and the removal of religious symbols all across our land.
To further understand this wrong view, Dr. Grudem explains that such views override the will of the people, it changes freedom of religion into freedom from religion, it wrongly restricts freedom of religion and freedom of speech, and it removes from government God's teaching about good and evil.
The objective of this viewpoint would be to make government completely secular, and withhold any conversations about God, or what God's moral law might say to us.
Next week we will explore Dr. Grudem's other "wrong views".
In the meantime, please take some time to listen to Dr. Grudem's audio below. These are important political times in our country, and it is critical that we all possess a Godly foundation under our political worldview.
I look forward to great conversations, in the comments section below, as this series moves forward.
Push the play button to listen:
