Politics and Religion

From Roe versus Wade until now.
Supreme court, overturning Roe. Huge win for Christians. But it wasn’t. It was a win for the Constitution. Many, perhaps tens of millions, mistakenly thought overturning Roe meant outlawing abortion. It didn’t. It meant putting that decision back into the hands of the people. Which it did.
Something happened in the 50 years of Roe that I think people are just starting to realize. We stopped being a religious nation. Now that Roe is overturned, quite a lot of Christians are realizing that most people are OK with abortion in some fashion. Our state had a trigger law to outlaw the practice. It’s good our politicians did that when nobody thought the law was ever going to be overturned. Because now that it’s overturned, outlawing it seems politically impossible. Why? Because even people who self-identify as Christians grew to accept the practice or simply don’t care as much as the devout believers.
When Roe was wrongly decided, the nation would have mostly outlawed abortion. It took a court to invent a right and making a decree to enact this barbaric practice. Fifty years on, the situation is reversed. A nation that has legalized weed and can’t figure out basic gender biology doesn’t really care that much about abortion. Times have changed.
Times have changed but I don’t think we realize the extent. Most Americans are involved in public policy and debate because that’s our culture. We are raised to understand the Republic and at least be aware of it, if not involved. Many of us whose lives are founded on scripture have been lobbying Godly principles for quite a while. But the country has shifted. Those of us who are faithful understanding basic right and wrong through the Bible. We value absolutes and we know no other way. And, naively, we connected those who shared our policy preferences to the bible. It now turns out that quite a lot of people who value liberty and the same things we do don’t come to those points through scripture but some other way. Or maybe they don’t really value our principles at all and were just using us as a means to an end. Either way, times have changed.
Whether it was from maturing or as a natural reaction to realizing the change, I have personally been distancing myself from following politics in the last couple years. Old habits do die hard, but it’s becoming clear that Godly principles are fading away and those of us who are faithful in the God of Abraham are quickly being faced with a choice. Who are we going to serve?
In the first century AD, the world was dominated by a pagan country. Rome wanted nothing to do with Judaism or Christianity. They allowed people to have different religious beliefs as long as it didn’t interfere with their dominance. We know in the last days that persecution will come. Most believe that persecution will come overnight but we know from history it doesn’t work that way. It comes over time. I would say that if your feeling increasingly separated from the rulers of this world, Yahweh is probably nudging you that direction. Brothers and sisters, we cannot serve two masters. At some point, we will have to make a choice. Choose wisely.