MacArthur on Politics and Christianity

John MacArthur is in the middle of a series, "Christians and Politics" at the Pulpit Magazine blog. The scathing comments below are from part two posted today:

Throughout Protestant history, those segments of the visible church that have turned their attention to social and political issues have also compromised sound doctrine and quickly declined in influence. Early modernists, for example, explicitly argued that social work and moral reform were more important than doctrinal precision, and their movement soon abandoned any semblance of Christianity whatsoever.

Today’s evangelical political activists seem to be unaware of how much their methodology parallels that of liberal Christians at the start of the twentieth century. Like those misguided idealists, contemporary evangelicals have become enamored with temporal issues at the expense of eternal values. Evangelical activists in essence are simply preaching a politically conservative version of the old social gospel, emphasizing social and cultural concerns above spiritual ones.

MacArthur has not yet directly addressed whether his concerns are directed at the involvement of individual Christians in politics or the involvement of the church as an institution. My personal concerns relate almost exclusively to the latter. We'll see how the series develops.