I hear some clergy expressing the notion that somehow their duties are confined only to things that are "spiritual." Just preach the Gospel. Just bring people into the Kingdom. Stay out of the secular governance of the nation. Politics are dirty. It's always been that way--always will be. And so on.

While I am personally committed to the proclamation of the Gospel, is the intersection of faith and life off limits when it comes to good government? John Witherspoon, the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence did not think so. Witherspoon, also the President of the College of New Jersey (later known as Princeton University) and the mentor of James Madison had this to say in May of 1776:

"I willingly embrace the opportunity of declaring my opinion without any hesitation, that the cause in which America is now in arms, is the cause of justice, of liberty, and of human nature. . . The knowledge of God and his truths have from the beginning of the world been chiefly, if not entirely confined to those parts of the earth where some degree of liberty and political justice were to be seen. . . There is not a single instance in history, in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire. If therefore we yield up our temporal property, we at the same time deliver the conscience into bondage."

In other words, if people who believe in the biblical Revealer of Truth and Liberty shut their mouths, and confine themselves to the "ghetto" of speaking only about "safe" spiritual topics that will offend no one, then eventually the enemies of freedom will not stop. They will show no tolerance to those who are committed to the biblical revelation. They will not be satisfied until they ultimately remove freedom even to speak about the supposedly "safe" topics.

Let Witherspoon have the last say here: "A Republic once equally poised, must either preserve its virtue, or lose its liberty."