Repairing the Ruins: An Interview with Cal Thomas

Tabletalk: Evangelical Christians took center stage in American politics during the years when the Moral Majority was prominent. Was that a good thing or a bad thing for the Church? Why?

Cal Thomas: As Ed Dobson and I wrote in our 1999 book Blinded by Might: Why the Religious Right Can't Save America, there is no biblical command against believers voting. But followers of Jesus, whose kingdom is not of this world, should not think that having the "right" person in office will somehow restore righteousness to a fallen and sin-infested world. How can a fallen leader repair a fallen society? He (or she) can't. Only God can do that through changed lives. And lives can be changed only by the transforming power of Jesus Christ. Indeed, it has always been so. As revivals of the past have shown us, the social impact was astounding. So if believers want to see a culture improved (fewer abortions, less drunkenness, fewer divorces, and so on), let their objective be to lead more people to Christ. Those converts will then be "transformed by the renewing of their minds," and societal transformation will follow. It's bubble- up, not trickle-down. The problems we face come from our forgetting God and worshipping the golden calf of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. In material things and pleasure we trust, not God. That's why He gives us over to the consequences of an unrestrained lower nature. Politics can't redeem us from that.

Continue reading Repairing the Ruins: An Interview with Cal Thomas from the February issue of Tabletalk.