Church & Christian Business Guide®

Feature Article 3

The Duty of Churches to be Politically Active
by Wallace Henly

Mark Twain, an allegedly notorious skeptic, understood the importance of the Church in his day. In the September 2, 1904, edition of Collier’s, Twain wrote:

"It will be conceded… that a Christian’s first duty is to God. It then follows, as a matter of course, that it is his duty to carry his Christian code of morals to the polls and vote them. Whenever he shall do that, he will not find himself voting for an unclean man, a dishonest man… If Christians should vote their duty to God at the polls, they would carry every election, and do it with ease… Their prodigious power would be quickly realized and recognized, and afterward there would be no unclean candidates upon any ticket, and graft would cease… If the Christians of America could be persuaded to vote God and a clean ticket, it would bring about a moral revolution that would be incalculably beneficent. It would save the country…"

Churches must not act in a partisan way, but they should equip and send people into the political process at all levels who will represent the interests of the Kingdom of God. If Mark Twain is correct, this could result in the salvation of the nation itself.

Churches, especially, ought to be involved because they bring a heavenly perspective to the earthly realm.