The issue that first got many evangelicals involved in politics was abortion. After that, it was a threat to private schools from the IRS. Those were both in the 1970s. As the 1980s progressed, so did the “gay rights” agenda. That has increasingly received attention.
All of these are sometimes categorized as the “social issues.” Commentators often talk about those being the hot-button issues for evangelicals because they are focused on problems of morality. I cannot argue with that. They deserve our concern.
I would like to note, though, that we sometimes divide these issues into artificial compartments. In my view, all issues come back to some aspect of morality, and they all affect our society. The division that is usually made is between the moral concerns and the economic concerns, but stop and think for a minute: how can we divorce economics from morality?
How money is spent is a moral issue. How much we spend has to do with morality as well. If we go into massive debt, how is that not a matter of right and wrong?
If you haven’t done so yet, I encourage you to reorient your thinking and realize that there really is no division. Citizens—and particularly Christian citizens—should see our national concerns as interconnected. In the same way as there should be no dichotomy between sacred and secular [God is the author of all knowledge and gave man the ability to think and create], neither is there a dichotomy between morality and economics or government structure or any other issue one might raise.
Let’s be renewed in our minds. Let’s see the whole rather than the parts in isolation.