October 2020

Many evangelicals who have drifted left in recent years seem to believe that the political left better addresses issues like poverty and racism. They often judge conservatives as heartless, assuming they don’t care about these issues. Some well-known preachers have even said that conservatives focus on abortion while liberals care about the poor. However, this framing creates a false binary. Theological conservatives who lean right do not vote as they do because they are heartless, but because they believe that leftist policies—however well-intentioned—are, in fact, primary causes of poverty and systemic racism.

Christians agree that we have a special obligation beyond that of ordinary humanity to care for the poor and marginalized. The disagreement lies in the solution. Public policy should not be judged merely by its intentions but by its results.

California, where I grew up, is a good example of the “good intentions” fallacy. Consider these five facts about the Golden State:

1. California has one of the greatest disparities in education for minority students, largely due to the influence of teachers' unions. Many teachers avoid positions in underserved areas, and widespread school choice is necessary to address education gaps that often leave poor, minority students in failing public schools, while their wealthier peers attend private schools or move to better districts. Yet, local leaders consistently oppose school choice because of political interests.

2. California spends about $98.5 billion annually on welfare—the most in the U.S.—yet it has the highest poverty rate in the country.

3. California has the highest income tax rate in the U.S. at 13.3%, but it ranks fourth in income inequality among all states.

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.