October 2020

Many of the evangelicals who have drifted left in recent years seem to have done so with the belief that the left better deals with issues such as poverty and racism, and they judge conservatives to be heartless as if they do not care about these issues. I have even heard some well known preachers declare that conservatives care about abortion but liberals care about the poor. This, I believe, is to create a false binary. Theological conservatives who lean to the right do not vote the way they do because they dream of ways to be heartless, but because, among other things, they believe that leftist policies, however well intended, are the primary cause of poverty and systemic racism to begin with.

We all agree that Christians have a special obligation beyond what ordinary humanity has to take care of the poor and marginalized. We just disagree over the solution. But we ought not judge public policy merely by its good intentions.

California (where I grew up) is a good example of the good intentions fallacy. Consider these 5 facts about the Golden State:

1. California has one of the greatest disparities in education for minorities kids, among other reasons, due to its political captivity to its teachers unions. Many are unwilling to take a job in schools they see as an undesirable location. In addition, widespread school choice is necessary to deal with persistent education gaps that often leave poor, minority students in failing public schools while their wealthy peers have the money to send their children to private schools or move to a desirable school district. But the people being put in office in these cities are opposed to school choice because of political interests.

2. California spends about $98.5 billion annually on welfare — the most in the US — but has the highest poverty rate in America.

by Robert Candlish

"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."—1 JOHN 1:8–10.

THE gracious assurance that "the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cleanseth us from all sin," suggests the supposition of our "saying that we have no sin." For if we, "walking in the light as God is in the light," could say that truly, we might dispense with the relief which the assurance is fitted to give. But, alas! we can say it only under the influence of self-deception, and such self-deception as implies the absence of that "truth in the inward parts" which God "desires" (Psalm 51:6). Better far to "confess our sins," believing that God "forgiveth our sins," and that he does so in such a way of "faithfulness and justice" as insures our being "cleansed from all unrighteousness" with regard to them,—all unfair and partial dealing with conscience or with God about them. In this full faith let us "confess our sins." For if, after all, even in our confession, there is reserve and guile, trying to make out that in this or that instance "we have not sinned," or not sinned so much as might appear, we are guilty still of an unbelieving distrust of God; "we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."

Such is the line of the Apostle's argument, in three successive steps or stages.