[..] Every political judgement has four components to it. One part is a normative framework. There are some secular political thinkers who claim that they have a fully objective starting point. But they are trying to kid themselves or you; everyone’s normative values are rooted finally in their deepest philosophical or religious commitments. So I go back to the Scriptures largely to find my normative framework. But second, we need a broad study of the world, history, economics and so on. And then we need to pull these two things together and develop a political philosophy. The reason we need that is this: Every time you want to decide how to vote on legislation or a particular politician, you cannot take five years and go back and do all the biblical studies again, and five years to do all the socio-economics and history again. You need a roadmap, a handy guide, a summary and that is what I mean by a political philosophy. And then of course you have to apply that political philosophy to every political decision. One other preliminary point: I think it is crucial that one starts ones political analysis and thinking within the Christian community. If you do not do that, then you end up adopting secular political ideologies of left or right. And that is exactly what happened with many Christians in politics, at least in my country. Too many Christians have uncritically adopted left wing or right wing politics. The result has been a sub-Christian Religious Right, that I think largely correctly championed the sanctity of life and the family, but neglected economic justice for the poor and environmental concerns. Equally sub-Christian was the Religious Left that rightly defended peace and justice and the integrity of creation, but largely forgot about the importance of the family and sexual integrity and failed to defend the most vulnerable of all, the unborn. When I give a longer version of this speech I make the next section on a discussion of my normative biblical framework, but there is no time for that, so I will go on immediately to sketch my political philosophy. And I hope as I do that, you can see how I try to develop my political philosophy out of a normative biblical framework and out of a careful study of the world. Obviously there is no developed political philosophy in the Bible. Individuals and communities of Christians need to develop that as they put together a normative framework and study of the world. So, several components of my political philosophy:

First, the democratisation or decentralisation of power: I think there is a positive reason and a negative reason for decentralising power. The positive reason is that every person is created in the image of God and is given a creation mandate to be co-worker with God in shaping history. If all the decisions are made by just a few people, the majority cannot exercise their creation mandate. The negative reason for decentralisation of power has been stated pointedly by Lord Acton. He said power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Biblical people know that sinful people in a fallen world will almost always use centralised power for their selfish advantage. They will use it to benefit themselves and oppress others.

Second, and partly flowing from the first, is democracy. I do not think the Bible explicitly teaches a democratic political order, but I think some biblical principles and a study of the world point us in that direction. I think the biblical teaching about the worth of every individual and the importance of individual freedom and a concern for human rights and a concern for the decentralisation of power, all lead us toward a democratic political order. When you have freedom of speech, secret voting, universal suffrage, political power is fundamentally decentralised, at least theoretically.

Third, non-governmental institutions: A great British Christian leader said that the greatest heresy about society is to think that society is just individuals and the state. Society when it works well is composed of many non-governmental institutions: family, religious institutions, media, schools, businesses and a host of other non-governmental organisations. All of these intermediate institutions decentralise power, they provide small centres where human beings can flourish and they check centralised power, they check governmental power and they provide freedom. So a good society will pay a lot of attention and value and treasure those intermediate, non-governmental institutions.

Fourth, the very ‘non-controversial’ topic of the market-economy: I think the history of the 20th century shows clearly that when the state owns almost all of the productive property in a society, you centralise economic power and political power and you almost guarantee totalitarianism. Genuinely decentralised private ownership on the other hand nurtures free individuals and it serves as a counter-balance to political power. Furthermore determining prices and production via supply and demand has proven to be more efficient than central planning. I also think that biblical teaching about the value and the freedom of the individual also supports this approach. However, huge privately owned corporations also centralise power in a dangerous way. When a small group of very wealthy people own huge corporations and those corporations own the media and so shape the thinking of the society and provide most of the money for the election [campaign]s. Then again you have centralised economic and political power in a dangerous way. I find it interesting that political conservatives in my own country were very clear about this danger of centralised power in the 1970’s and 80’s, as they rightly criticised theSoviet Union. They seem to have somehow forgotten the principle of decentralisation of power now when we are talking about private corporations.

I will not say much about the next point, religious freedom, except to remind you that my roots are Swiss Mennonite and we care a lot about separation of church and state. Next I will talk about the family. I think that government rightly recognises and favours the family. By family I mean those related by blood, marriage or adoption. The sociological studies have been very clear that children do better when they are raised by both of their biological parents. The sociological research on that is overwhelmingly clear. The family, not the government, has the primary responsibility to raise children. I think religious institutions can do more than government to strengthen the family. But government can do some things and should. I think that means discouraging but not criminalising divorce and sexual promiscuity. I also think it means civil rights for gay citizens, but I do not think that means gay marriage is the way to go.

Next, the care for creation: I think responsible care for creation flows out of biblical norms. [..] I think that human beings have a far greater worth than the non-human world, but very seldom do we have to choose between taking a human life and destroying an endangered species. Usually it is a choice between growing affluence on the one hand and destroying the handiwork of the Creator. So we need to take a long term approach to environmental sustainability, but we must always do that in a way that helps the poor rather than hurts them. And we wealthy nations, that have created most of the environmental pollution thus far, ought to pay much of the cost of helping the whole globe take environmental issues seriously.

A couple of comments about the role of government: You have probably read about the Tea Party movement in theUnited States. Many American evangelicals are engaged in the Tea Party, inconsistently I think. The Tea Party is essentially libertarian, [in their view] government has no role in empowering the poor, the family and the church are supposed to do that. I think that if you look at the scriptures you see that the king is supposed to do justice for the poor. I also think that government must be limited, remember the point about decentralisation of power. So, there is a proper role for government in creating a good society and empowering the poor. I believe in taxing wealthier people in order to redistribute to poorer people, although it is not always politically wise to put it in just those terms. But that must be done wisely, the programmes must be effective. And too often programmes for the poor have created dependency rather than self-sufficiency. So, I want a substantial role for government, but a limited role. And I think you can make a case for that both from biblical teaching and from study of the world.

Next let me comment on the priority of the poor. The Bible is very clear, God is on the side of the poor. God measures societies by what they do to the people on the bottom. I think that both biblical analysis and study of the world also show the following: People are poor both because they sometimes make bad personal choices and because the structures are unfair. And conservatives seem to want to talk only about the personal choices and liberals seem to want to talk only about bad structures. And I think that is tragic, because both factors are important.

Next, a consistent ethic of life: I think the first and most basic human right is the right to life. And I think abortion involves the direct, intentional, violent taking of life. I am in favour of legislation that reduces the frequency of abortions. But we also need to be clear that there are two people involved, not just the baby. So we need to have a variety of programmes that help mothers with unintended pregnancies carry that baby to term. I think euthanasia, as a direct action to take a human life, is fundamentally wrong and very dangerous for a society. That does not mean that it is wrong to decide, if the doctors say that you have no hope of living beyond a few months, that you do not want all the machines and all the complicated techniques that modern medicine can do. But I think there is a fundamental distinction between allowing a person to die and killing a person. And I think that distinction, although sometimes difficult, is really crucial. But a concern for the sanctity of human life, does not end with abortion and euthanasia, some wise guy said that some conservatives act as if life begins at conception and ends at birth. Tens of millions of people die unnecessarily of starvation and diseases we know how to prevent. Tobacco kills millions of people every year, the capital punishment kills people made in the image of God. I think a consistent ethic of life will be concerned with the sanctity of life in all those areas.

Finally just a very few comments about the American religious scene right now. I think that many people both in theUSand outside think that the Religious Right represents all American evangelicals. It is a little oversimplification but largely true to say that the Religious Right was concerned primarily with abortion and sexuality and marriage. In the last approximately ten years a new Evangelical Centre has emerged and it is concerned with a much broader political agenda. I like to say that if you want to be a Christian in politics you will have to ask this question: What does the Bible say God cares about? And I think when you ask that question, then you quickly see that God cares about the sanctity of human life and the poor, about the family and peace making, about sexual integrity and about care for creation. I like to say and this has been true of me for a long time: I am pro life and pro poor, pro family and pro racial justice, pro sexual integrity and pro creation care. And in 2004 the National Association of Evangelicals adopted a statement which reflects this broader agenda. I had the privilege of co-chairing that process and the statement says that faithful evangelical political engagement must have a biblically balanced agenda. And the statement goes on to have a strong conservative statement on the sanctity of human life and marriage and family, but the longest section is on economic justice for the poor and there are fairly strong statements on peace making and creation care. Now, not nearly all evangelicals in theUSvote according to that statement, but that is the official framework for the largest evangelical organisation in the US.

Ronald J. Sider is a professor of Theology, Holistic Ministry and Public Policy at Palmer Theological Seminary in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. He is the founder of Evangelicals for Social Action, a think-tank which seeks to develop biblical solutions to social and economic problems, and a founding board member of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment. Transcript by Jonathan van Tongeren.