Platforms and Principles

By constitutional design, the United States experiences a political revolution every four to eight years. Our revolutions are generally a peaceful transition from rule by one political party to another. In the late summer before the presidential election, political parties hold their conventions during which they do two important things: they present their platforms and they nominate their candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency. The candidates are the standard bearers for the party’s political program. Generally, the platform is a set of political statements expressing the presidential nominee’s positions, the party’s positions, and the “wish-lists” of the major political interest groups aligned with that particular party. The campaign for the presidency is as much about political platforms as it is about political personalities.

The platform of a political party is an expression of that party’s worldview. Democrat Party platforms tend to be liberal and are oriented to a more politically progressive philosophy; Republican Party platforms tend to be conservative and oriented to traditional American moral and political values. Even though platforms change in some respects every four years, depending on what the current political hot-button issues are, the fundamental philosophy, or worldview, undergirding the platform stays essentially the same. Worldviews tend to remain constant; they undergo few changes over time. The reason worldviews rarely change is because they are rooted in values. To change one’s values is indeed a revolutionary event.

We believers have our own “life-platform;” we are expressing in our lifestyles what we believe are the currently important issues for us. Searching for a job/career, a spouse, a place to live, a church, etc. are all parts of our life platform. When we find a job, that part of our platform is readjusted. We then must decide to what degree we will try to advance professionally; what level of income we desire; what our work conditions will be; and so on. Yet, underlying our platform is a set of values.

Sometimes, we find our values to be inconsistent with the teachings of Scripture. One of the events occurring in most of our lives, proving to be a challenge to some of our values, is the competition arising among the various planks of our platform. What do we do when family and job compete for time and resources? For a while, our job may be the number one priority in our lives. Then, we get married and find our relationship with our spouse and the demands of that relationship are in conflict with our commitment to our job. How will we resolve that dilemma? Scripture gives us guidance in both areas. What we might find is our career values are in conflict with biblical admonitions; or, our family values may fall short of the biblical principles regarding marriage and family. So, in such cases, we should look deeply at our values and attempt to align them with biblical teachings. We find peace in that process.

When James and the other Bible writers authored their works, they typically were addressing the disconnects between what the people of God were doing and what God expected of them. In James, the writer was addressing a group of people whose conduct in many ways was inconsistent with the biblical ethic. James showed how favoring one person over another was to compromise the integrity of the Law. He also pointed out the inconsistency in saying two things wholly in conflict with one another. Can a fig tree produce an olive, a vine a fig, or a spring both fresh and bitter water, James asked?

While James probably would not have used the word worldview, he did have that concept in mind. He argued believers always should be analyzing their conduct to determine if what they were doing was consistent with what they professed to believe. Further, he was concerned for his readers to understand what the Word of God expected from those who claimed to be living according to biblical precepts. One’s conduct may be wrong because one misunderstands or ignores what the Law of God teaches.

We cannot go through life, anymore than James’s first readers could, with a casual attitude about what we believe. We must always be attempting to determine if what we believe really is what the Bible teaches. Also, we must ask ourselves constantly if what we are doing is consistent with what we say we believe.

Political parties are notorious for compromising their platforms and the underlying political philosophies they are supposed to believe. They do so for the sake of political expediency, power and advantage. We, on the other hand, cannot afford to compromise at any point. Unlike political parties, we cannot rationalize our values for selfish reasons. To do so is arrogance. To do so is to insult God.