Friday, May 2, 2014

What Does Sola Scriptura Have To Do With It?

E. Ray Moore is a home-school/Christian school advocate running for state attorney general in South Carolina.  Here is a link to a piece about Moore by Dr. Joel McDurmon on American Vision.  The gist of it are excerpts from a foreword Moore wrote to a book by some other evangelicals about how the "Christian Right" was used by the political machine.

In the foreword, Moore's says we should return to Sola Scriptura in the realm of public policy and politics as well as doctrine.  He calls for repentance and intercessory prayer. 

As a Christian, I am a Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide kind of guy.  If I were not, I would go down and join the Roman Catholic church.  However, my RC friends generally have the same worldview that I have.  We all think immorality and abortion are bad.  If I had children in school these days, I would home-school or send them to a Christian school, and I would not be too particular if it were Catholic or Protestant. 

Sola Scriptura is a foundation doctrine of the Reformation.  It is part of who we are as Protestants, but I have a hard time seeing how it "fixes" the problems in America.  What we need is a return to limited, constitutional government with a reduction in federal bureaucracy and a restoration of state, local, and individual sovereignty. 

So what if the 20% of the electorate is fundamentalist evangelical Protestant?  What do you think that is going to get you?  John Ashcroft?  I used to sit in church with John Ashcroft.  As I may have said before, his father, Dr. J. Robert Ashcroft had a tremendous and profoundly positive impact on my life, how I have lived and what I have done.  John Ashcroft was a decent governor, Senator, and U.S. Attorney General.  Was he light-years better than Eric Holder?  The DA who always lost to Perry Mason is better than Holder.  Did he make any real difference other than providing drapes for nekkid statues?  Not really. 

Certainly as individual Christians, as congregations and denominations, we are to be guided by our foundational doctrines and principles.  We do need to repent of indifference, apathy, and cowardice and be more like Dr. Dobson. 

But we also need to get government out of the lives and businesses of everybody.  I want to be free to speak the truth to my heathen neighbor.  I don't want a federal regulation that forces him to attend my church. 

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