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Evangelicals apparently have so much political clout that they are poised to install a theocracy, according to some commentators. Such critics don't notice there is little distinctively evangelical about the evangelical approach to politics. The evangelical emphases—on conversion, the Cross, the Bible, and activism—do not themselves amount to a full, independent theological system. Nor do they take us far in understanding politics, which requires at least some grasp of history, government, law, justice, freedom, rights, mercy, violence, and war. Thoughtful evangelicals trying to understand politics often draw on the wider resources of Calvinist, Anabaptist, Anglican, Lutheran, or Catholic teaching.

Still, venerable publications like The New Republic go overboard when they claim that evangelicals merely march to the drumbeat of Catholic thinkers like Richard Neuhaus, Michael Novak, and George Weigel. Yes, evangelical distinctives can be compatible with a range of other doctrines. Hence, we can speak easily of evangelical Anglicans or Lutherans, even of evangelical Orthodox or Catholics. The Economist plausibly took Sen. Sam Brownback, a recent convert to Catholicism, to symbolize growing evangelical international activism on religious freedom, sex trafficking, AIDS, Sudan, and North Korea.

Evangelical activism through the centuries has undoubtedly produced some laudable results. The evangelical commitment to religious freedom predates the Enlightenment, and the ethic of personal responsibility helped produce the civil society that Alexis de Tocqueville so admired during his 19th-century visit to America. But it also produces major problems. Currently, evangelical activism hampers responsible political engagement by casually proof-texting the Bible and claiming the authority of Old Testament prophets.

When arguing their viewpoint on topics like economics or the nature of the family, evangelicals tend to move quickly from the biblical text to contemporary political prescriptions. They hardly address the entirety of the biblical story, and often ignore 2,000 years of Christian reflection on moral and political issues.

Take, for example, how some move from debt forgiveness—required in Israel's sabbatical and Jubilee years—to current programs for forgiving Third World debt. I sympathize with the cause of debt forgiveness, but it is a stretch to argue this from the Bible. Israel's Jubilee was about more than redistributing wealth. God ordained it as the response of a covenanted community, reordering its internal affairs in an explicitly liturgical process. That process began on the Day of Atonement, when Israel commemorated God's forgiveness of its own debts. The Jewish people were to totally depend on God as they abstained from planting crops for two years.

The Jubilee certainly has implications for current debt policies. It implies that debtors do not have an absolute obligation to repay. But it is no blueprint for modern policies to forgive Third World debt if, for example, such forgiveness alleviated fiscal problems and thus strengthened thugs like Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

Also, if we consider Israel's life normative for economics, then why not also for other issues? Israel allowed little religious freedom. When we talk with Muslims about punitive passages in the Qur'an, we should remember the Bible commands Israel to stone followers of Molech (Lev. 20:2). And should we imitate Joshua's call for war in the name of God? Should we follow another Levitical law and kill adulterers? If not, then we need to justify obeying the Jubilee but not other laws. Not to mention, we must show hermeneutically how to move from Israel's covenanted, land-based, tribal society to a multi-religious, service-based, federal, and otherwise diverse polity such as modern America.

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September 2006, Vol. 50, No. 9