Many pastors encourage their congregations to stay out of government and to abstain from voting. Is this mindset truly biblical?

From Capitol Ministries. Ralph Drollinger, President and Founder of Capitol Ministries rejected what some Christian pastors have taught and are continuing to teach from the pulpit—that believers should avoid participating in government because it is evil.

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As a recent guest on the popular Don Kroah Washington-D.C.- based radio show, Drollinger said teaching that government is evil is a very extreme position that does not hold up to the litmus test of biblical exegesis.

“To say, I shouldn’t be involved in voting or in anything governmentally because it’s an evil institution that’s just unfounded biblically.”

Drollinger made his comments in a discussion with Don Kroah, a pastor and radio show host who noted that Dr. James Dobson had pointed out that some nine million Christian evangelicals chose to stay home and not vote in 2012 when Mitt Romney ran for president.

“Where do you think the roots of this mentality have come from in the church?” Kroah asked. “And that probably has been the truth more than once in our election cycles. How do you explain that? And also, more to the point, how do we remedy it?”

Drollinger answered that believers need to engage in the political arena with a biblical understanding of how to do that and that voting is a necessity. He explained that evangelicals gave up participating in government to distance themselves from heretics who were heavily involved in politics. These heretics called themselves Christian but did not believe in biblical theology such as the Trinity, that Jesus is the Son of God, and that man needed salvation.

“If you look at the five parts of American church history, you know that the encroachment of theological liberalism in the church 120 years ago or so rewrote the whole idea of what Christianity is,” Drollinger said.

“But it was nothing more than heresy. The social gospel, also known as theological liberalism, is nothing biblical at all. But yet, for the social gospelers to root themselves with their theological ideology in American mainline life, they had to tie themselves to the political arena.”

Click here to read Drollinger’s Bible studies, “Theological Liberalism in America,” and “Liberal Theology’s Struggle with Modern Archaeology,” and “Do All Roads Lead to Heaven? A Close Look at Universalism.”

“And so, the knee-jerk reaction of fundamental evangelicals was to get out of the political arena. And today, I think we still see the remnants of that. In answer to your question, in a historical perspective, the reason that evangelicals shy from the voter box is because they have pastors who are still reactionary to the social gospel idea and position that we don’t want to be seen among the theological liberals who are involved in the political arena.”

Drollinger advised Christians to reject such thinking.

“Pastors say government is evil and therefore Christians shouldn’t be involved in evil government. Don’t get involved in that. That view is it is very extreme.

“God invented the institution of government. When you look at Romans 13 or first Peter two or even alluded to in Matthew 22 is that God is not only the author of the institution of the church but also the institution of government.”

Romans 13:1 says, Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.

First Peter 2:13-14 reads: Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right.

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(Used with permission. From Capitol Ministries. Photo Credit: Louis Velazquez on Unsplash)