#STRask - How Do We Advocate for Christian Policy Without Making the Government Interfere in Every Area of Life?

Episode Date: November 20, 2025

Questions about how to advocate for Christian policy without making the government interfere in every area of life, and the differences between the modern environmental movement and the Christian perspective on caring for the earth.   How do we advocate for Christian policy without making the government interfere in every area of life? Can you compare and contrast the modern environmental movement’s view with the Christian view regarding caring for the earth?

You're listening to Amy Hall and Greg Kokel on the hashtag St.R-Ask podcast from Stan to Reason. And Greg, today we have some political questions. So this first one comes from Victoria. How do we advocate for Christian policy? without making the government interfere in every area of life. This is a, I'm pausing because this is a judgment call that's not always easy to make. If you read in the Constitution, which guides our civic life, the preamble says, I'm looking if I don't have a copy of it, but it says what the government is supposed to be doing. and provide for the common defense, see to the, oh, you have it right here, okay.

For the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, and now it is basically saying what the Constitution is supposed to do, the people are affirming this, to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity to ordain and establish this Constitution. So there you have the statement in the Constitution that's meant to be the guideline for the extent of policy intrusions into people's lives. So obviously, these are moral terms that are used here.

although some are not quite, general welfare or the good and flourishing of people. But notice it also talks about the blessing of liberty, which is a type of freedom and latitude to act. And so the difficulty with this question, I mean, what we're facing is how restrictive should the government be to accomplish the first few ends without illicitly and inappropriately restricting liberty. So, I mean, it's, for example, it's wrong to lie, but is lying illegal? Well, only in certain circumstances, because in certain circumstances that lie, like perjuring oneself under oath, begins to tear at the fabric of the social contract of sorts. And this is an example of that. So,

There is always going to be a balance of thinking, how does the government punish evildoers and praise those who do good, where in the punishment of evildoers, we're not being so extreme that what results is a kind of totalitarian government where individual freedom and therefore human flourishing is going to be interfered with. And so that's the balance that we have to keep in mind. And different people are going to come on on different sides of that issue. So you have some political viewpoints want the government involved in everything, doing everything. Others want a lot less involvement. It's interesting the charge of fascism is so frequent now, at least from one side. I always wonder whether they've ever looked up the notion. Fascism comes principally from Benito Mussolini, and his understanding of government was very simple.

Everything in the government, nothing outside of the government, and nothing against the government. So that's fascism. And genuine fascism seems abusive. It seems like it's going to interfere with the kinds of things that we just read there in the preamination. of the Constitution, especially for the blessings of liberty that are secured, in this case, with the Bill of Rights, the liberty to worship, the liberty to speak, the liberty to be armed, et cetera, et cetera, all of that as part of the Bill of Rights. So I can't – it's difficult for me to answer this question by saying, here's where

the line is in any particular issue. one has to ask the question, is the policy being enforced or considering being enforced here, one that first has moral justification? And secondly, is it inappropriately burdensome to the sense of freedom and liberty? Some people will say, well, yeah, not being able to have an abortion. That's inappropriately burdensome to my freedom and liberty. but what is the consequence of having an abortion? It's taking the life of another human being. That's the goal of an abortion. So individual liberty then takes a second seat, a backseat, so to speak, to the personal rights of that valuable individual whose life is being taken in abortion.

So I'm just using that as an example of how we weigh things out. But that's part of the process of public discourse and political discourse, and one has to look at the individual issues and to weigh them, I or nay, based on these notions, the morality of the action and also the purpose of the government and its role in the particular culture as dictated by the preamble here of the Constitution. One thing I want to throw in here before I go back to some more ideas for this, but anytime you're trying to create a government that does not interfere in every aspect of life, we are going to have to, as Christians, be active in our societies and be contributing to our societies so that the government isn't taking on the roles that belong to us as individuals and to other institutions. like family and church. So as Christians, we should be building up these pre-governmental institutions like marriage, family, these other institutions, church, other associations. When this country first started out, there were so many of these associations and people were taking care of each other, not through the government, because once you get the government

involved, now you're going to have a lot of injustice happening. So if you want to have a more limited government, you have to work at building up these other institutions so that the government is not all in all in society. And it's getting worse and worse. And we need to not just hand everything over to the government. And so one key, I think, when we're thinking about the Christian view of government because as Christians, if we're advocating for Christian policy, then we're advocating for a Christian view of government. So if we want a more limited government, one key difference is the negative rights versus positive rights. So if the purpose of the government is to keep order and is to punish evil and reward the good, then it's protecting our negative

rights. It's protecting our right to not be killed, to not have our speech taken away. to all these other things, it's preventing us, it's preventing from being removed from us. Those are negative rights. These are liberties. One could put it that way. These are, negative rights are certain liberties. So the liberty to speak or the liberty to carry or the liberty to print, the liberty to worship, these are all, they're called negative rights because they are, we're being left alone to do what we should be left alone to do. So as soon as you start advocating and in creating more and more positive rights, the government owes health care, the government owes a wage, the government owes houses, whatever you start adding on to that, now you've moved into a different view of government and now you have to take from some in order to give from others.

And now you have a situation where you're trying to equalize people. This is where the government starts to interfere in every area of life because they have to work again. against human nature. So if the nature of human beings is to work hard and to receive the fruit of our labor, and this is what's good. This is why we have property rights. This is why God insured property rights. This is how when people are responsible for their own things, this is when they take care of those things. And this is why the pilgrims had such a disastrous first year because they were trying to do some sort of socialistic endeavor with their farms, and they just all failed. But as soon as they were put in charge, because of our human nature,

because we work for reward and we should receive the fruits of our labor, and the Bible is very clear about that, you're going to have people with different amounts of things. That's just people have different gifts, people have different abilities, they have different interests, they have different values. They're going to work differently at different things. So as soon as you try to make everyone the same, if that's your goal, the government's going to start interfering in every area of life because it has to use force in order to try to equalize. And Christianity, here's why if you have a Christian view of politics and you're advocating for Christian policy and you understand the true. truth about human nature, the laws are going to go with human nature. As soon as you

misunderstand human nature, you're going to need more and more government or mental force to try and force it. So think about it. If by nature a man and a woman, the union of a man and a woman creates a family, and for all this time, we have, the government has supported that. Privileged it and regulated it and protected it. Right, because of the fact that it's a unique a unique union that creates human beings. So the government doesn't have to get too involved in that. It's very easy. If there's a child, it's considered to be the child of the parents.

They have certain rights. Those rights are protected. But as soon as you start having same-sex marriage, now you have a ton of interference because now you have to force insurance companies to pay for their IVF. You have to change the way you put people on birth certificates. You have to punish people who don't go along with it. You have to add so much force into the equation to try and make this thing that's not part of human nature, part of our society. It's a force fit of sorts.

Yes. Now, think the same thing is true with, say, transgenderism, because now, again, you have to add force for everyone to agree that a man is actually a woman. woman, and then you have to add force to make sure that they're able to go in the bathroom that they want to, because this is all against human nature. It adds a ton of law and a ton of interference. So as you're advocating for Christian policy, if you're advocating for policies that align with human nature, how we are as human beings, and it recognizes how we operate, what motivates us, how we make decisions, then you will have less interference than if you go with some other worldview that misunderstands human nature and then all sorts of problems are

caused, which then have to be, have to attempt to rectify by adding more laws. And more government power. You know, I remember something that was said during the formation of the country and the Constitution, and that was, I can't remember who said it, you might, but it had to do a self-regulation. And the idea was that this was a government that was being off. or a republic that required human beings to develop the ability to self-regulate. I talk to my daughters about this a lot, you know.

Honey, you've got to self-regulate. You have to say yes or no in appropriate ways to different things. You have to govern yourself. You've got to make this happen because if we don't have self-regulation, then the government is not going to be adequate. At least the government that we received is not going to be adequate to accomplish the domestic well-being, you know, it's going to take a certain type of person who's willing to self-regulate according to moral standards for that to take place and for a government like

this that we received in the Great American experiment to function without being heavy-handed. Of course, that's long gone about the heavy-handedness of government, but Amy, you pointed out the reasons why it's gotten that way. And one of them is the inability for people to self-regulate and do what's right. And so, therefore, the government has got to step in more aggressively. And this is why, like I mentioned at the beginning, we have to do this within a full Christian worldview, which means that we are also telling people the gospel. We're discipling people. We're helping them to know what's right and wrong and to want to do what's right.

and we are giving charity and we evangelism, discipleship, charity, living in community, all of these things are what make the limited government work. And without them, it can't work. So there's more to being a Christian in politics than just the laws. You also have to create a society in which those laws, in which the government can do its role and we do our role and don't just hand it off to the government so that it can interfere with everyone. I recommend Jay Richards' book, Money, Green, and God. I always do. It's so good because economics is really just about human decisions. And it's so interesting to me to understand human beings and understand why they do what they do and then to make policies that work within that human nature so that you get a system that works

despite the evil in our hearts. It actually harnesses because you have to serve someone, even if you don't care about them, you have to serve them in order to make money. And so when everybody is making their free choices and they have to serve someone so that they want to make free choices with them, Then you get a society that's able to work even though we have a, you know, fallen human beings in the society. And, of course, there will always be problems. You can't avoid that.

It's a fallen world. But this, anyway, I recommend money greeting God. Well, what it does is it takes human nature seriously, fallen human nature seriously. It harnesses, it's the word you, we both use simultaneously, to take human nature in its worst sense and have it work for. something good in culture. And this, you just reminded me of another aspect of a Christian view of government. Again, with the human nature of the people in charge, a lot of people think the problem with the government is that it's the wrong people in power. Well, the problem is you have to limit the power of everyone because no matter who you have in the government, they will

eventually abuse the power. So this is what the founders of this country, And they wanted to divide up the power because they, again, they understood human nature. So the bigger government gets now. And the more that that people particularly on the left right now think our side is good, the other side is evil, therefore we want as much power for ourselves as we can get. Again, you're working at human nature and you're going to end up with a disaster. So, yeah, it's such an interesting topic. All right. I could talk about it forever. But let's go on to a question from Lucy. Can you compare and contrast the modern environmental movement's view

with the Christian view regarding caring for the Earth? Well, you know, I don't know if people are going to be happy with this, but I think this idea of the Christian view of people caring for the Earth is a new idea. I don't think it is a theologically, grounded idea. Now, there certainly is a point in Genesis 1 where we are told to be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the Earth. And my sense there is to take and make the Earth serve us in a productivity, useful way. Mother Nature doesn't care. If you think about the cosmos, the most

obvious thing about the cosmos is death and ruin, you know. The earth is unique in that it has life in it. Everything else is dead. So if we're going to use Mother Nature is the standard, Mother Nature, let's be kind to the earth. I don't think we have any obligation to the Earth. I think we have an obligation to persons. And so we have some obligation to God, but I'm not exactly sure what that looks like in this circumstance. We also have, but we do definitely have obligation to other people. So my view about not trashing things, so when I go to Wisconsin in the spring, the road that goes into our cabin from the highway there, it's about two miles long. And within the first week, I've cleaned up all kinds of trash that people over the winter have

tossed out, beer cans usually, and I just go through and pick it up. Why? Because it's unsightly, it's unpleasant, not just for me, but other people live in the area. And so, do the woods care? No, woods don't care. I'm not helping Mother Nature. I'm doing something for me and for my community, but not for Mother Nature. And so the idea of caring for the Earth, kind of apart from the human beings who are given the Earth to benefit from the Earth.

earth doesn't make any sense to me. The idea, well, and I've left many people, environmentalists, have this idea that human beings are the cancer on the planet. If we just got rid of human beings, everything would be fine. No one would be fine. You'd still have fires and tsunamis and volcanoes and destruction. Look at all the dinosaurs who died kind of in a very short period of time. So you have all kinds of stuff just created by other natural features. And if you're going to be a consistent naturalist, not bring God into the picture, well, then human beings are just part of nature. We're doing what we do.

We got gophers in our yard, and the gophers dig up our yard and make holes all over the place. They're destroying Mother Nature. No, they're part of Mother Nature. They're destroying my yard. And I don't like that. So we have to deal with the critters that make the problem. I saw yesterday a coyote ran through our backyard.

Well, we have cats. Well, you're part of nature, all of them, but a coyote could eat our cats. And so we have to keep the coyotes out for our benefit. If we're just going to let nature rule, then let nature rule, let the wildfires burn and all that other stuff. And that's the way, you know, some people have this attitude in California, which is why we have the kinds of fires that we do sometimes. So when it comes to the Christian perspective of environmentalism, I sometimes think this has gone too far. We have views that are akin to leftists but aren't justified by the Scripture. Now, it could be wrong on this, and I haven't done a lot of work on it, and other people have done more.

But, for example, why – now, what is – what is the – this is going to seem really – what's the right word, naughty? Why is the current level of existing species on the earth sacrosanct? Species have been going extinct from the beginning. Why is it now we have to preserve all of these? No, I think there's an argument that can be made, but it's an aesthetic argument because we like having these things, but not because there's something tragic in nature that happens when, you know, the dodo is lost from history. Okay.

It might be nice to have dodos around, like a lot of things, but why is there a problem just with species going extinct on a naturalistic perspective? And since the changing environment over time has caused things to go extinct, I'm not even ensure why a Christian would be morally compelled to protect the existing status quo of species. They might be personally compelled. Fine. For aesthetic reasons, fine. I have no problem with that.

But some people make it into a moral issue, and it doesn't make sense to me either on naturalistic grounds or on biblical grounds. So my approach is to be a good steward of the resources that we have, using them for, human benefit, which includes aesthetic elements as well. That's legitimate. But it's mostly out of consideration for each other that we are stewarding the planet well, not out of any consideration for the Earth as such. Does that make sense? I think I can I can sum up what you just said, and that is from the environmental movement's perspective, it's done at the expense of humans. And from the Christian perspective, it's for

the sake of humans. And sometimes it's more explicitly at the expense of humans. You get people who want to decrease the human population because they think it's better for the environment, which literally makes no sense. Because as you pointed out, Greg, we're part of nature too. So why why this focus on getting us out of the picture? It's interesting because they are acknowledging that we're different in some way, but they have no way to explain it. And they are acknowledging that nature is valuable in some way, but they have no way to explain that either. But what they end up doing is saying, because we want to protect nature, now we think human beings, either there should be fewer of them, or we should change all these things about our lives. or whatever it is, whereas for the Christian, if we're stewards of God's, of God's, all of nature

that God has given us, we're doing it. We're being good stewards for the sake of other human beings because we want to improve their lives. And that doesn't, as you noted, Greg, that doesn't mean we misuse things and we trash things. It means that when we create national parks. We're doing that not for nature. We're doing that for human beings. And when we find some part of nature that we can use in some way to increase our enjoyment of it, then we do that for the sake of human beings. And it's not wrong. I don't think we should be, I think we need to be careful that we appreciate the natural world because it is something that brings us so much joy. We don't want to destroy it, but it's for the sake of human beings, not for the

sake of itself. Yeah, that's nicely put. Notice, by the way, in the end of the book of Revelation, how heaven is described, it's a city. It's not a park. It's not a glade. It's not woods. It's not mountains. It's a city. So just to kind of put that in perspective a little bit. And I promise you, nobody wants to be outside more than I do. I love it so much. But hopefully this distinction will help you out, Lucy, and help you to understand the difference here. And we're at a time. So thank you so much, Vitoria, and thank you, Lucy. We really appreciate your questions. If you'd like to send us your question, send it on X with the hashtag STR ask or go to our website at STR.org. We look forward to hearing from you. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel for

understand to reason.