To be silent when you are not normally silent on such a clear scriptural matter is galling. The juxtaposition of many evangelical leaders in calling out for speaking on matters of justice, yet silent on THE matter of justice, that is the preservation of life, is hypocritical. Life is a hill worth dying on, and the paradoxical sound of that statement is not lost on me. If one is not alive, the other matters of justice do not matter. Such leaders should repent for both their cause of division in the church, and sheer timidity. Why?

The heretical division between religion and politics

God clearly judges nations. Core to God’s judging of nations is the matter of life. In Nahum 3, God’s charge is the significant amount of lives taken by Nineveh. King David didn’t build the temple because of too much blood on his hands. Life is not a small issue. What is more, part of becoming saved is declaring Jesus is Lord. That is not just a religious statement. Declaring such means Jesus is over every aspect of our lives: family, career, politics, etc. All of it. One cannot separate religion and the Gospel from politics because God does not.

Life is the point and a gift

From the garden when God breathed into Adam the breath of lives, to the new heavens and Earth where God grants access to the tree of life, to Ecclesiastes teaching us that life is a gift, to Jesus saying that he came that we may have life, core to justice is the right to exist, to life. The whole point of the Gospel is to end death and give eternal life. Death is the result of injustice, life is the product of justice. The establishment of government by God was to protect life, the allowance for arms is to protect life. One cannot separate the Gospel from the promotion and championing of life. For the cost of injustice is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

We are to call for repentance

The first sermon of the church is to be saved from our crooked generation. This landed Peter in trouble. The greatest prophet, John the Baptist, called out leaders to repent. His crime for being thrown into jail? He called political leaders out for their sin and called for bearing fruit inline with repentance. Jonah, the sign Jesus said he would give to leaders, was a man who called a nation to repentance. Foreigners repented when God’s people, whom were also sent prophets, ignored the call.

Repent

As pastors, we should be calling for people to repent from their crooked generation and turn to the giver and sustainer of life. We should celebrate when governments or people take steps inline with repentance. We should call our congregations to repent if they do not hold life as sacred, as many Christians sadly do. Recent moves by our high court are not a complete victory, but it is in the right direction. Such should be celebrated, for life is sacred and not a debatable mater. The calls by oddly silent evangelical leaders to focus instead on the Gospel instead of government are forgetting their role to call for repentance and celebrating fruit inline with such. They are calling for a division that simply does not exist in Scripture, for Jesus is Lord and will judge nations, not just people.