On today's broadcast, James Dobson interviewed Ralph & Danielle Drollinger, longtime friends of his who run an organization called Capitol Ministries, an organization that hosts regular Bible studies for, and ministers to, Members of Congress.
Among the members listed as sponsors on the organization's website are Todd Akin, Michele Bachmann, Paul Broun, Trent Franks, Louie Gohmert, Sue Myrick, Mike Pence, Tom Price, Lamar Smith, Joe Wilson and various others.
Danielle was actually a former employee of Focus on the Family before Dobson helped her get a job as a staffer for a Congressional committee in Washington DC. After she and Ralph were married, they started Capitol Ministries with the intention of creating a nationwide "farm system" to cultivate conservative Christian candidates at the state and national level.
And, as Ralph explained, thanks to the rise of the Tea Party, all sorts of Religious Right candidates have been elected to Congress "under the radar":
Dobson: Tell us, very quickly, about the exciting thing that is happening with now thirty five new Evangelicals and people that love Christ have come to the House of Representatives primarily. That's almost doubled the number of people who were there before.
Drollinger: Today, I think with the new class in were up to probably sixty Evangelicals now holding office. And what's really interesting about this - just to analyze it for a second - is with the entitlement program runaway, there's been a pendulum swing that has risen the Tea Party. And the Tea Party is this huge voter block that is bigger than, say, our old Religious Right voter blocks because it's all kinds of people that are trying to elect fiscal conservatives to save the country economically. And when you elect a fiscal conservatives with this big engine called the Tea Party, you typically get a social conservative ...
Dobson: And often a Christian.
Drollinger: That's right. And so now we've got this flood of new believers that have snuck in under the radar. And before, the secular media would always shoot our horses in the corral before they got out on the track. And now they've all snuck in under the radar and through the guise of being fiscally conservative they've rallied huge voter bases. They get elected and they happen to be believers and they're saying "let's fuel a movement for Christ in the nation's capital."
Drolling went on to explain that at a recent Bible study for members of Congress, he taught on the issue what the Bible says about entitlement programs and mentioned that he also makes these studies available in printed form for Members who cannot make it to any particular study session.
And indeed he does, as there are twleve year's worth of such studies posted on their website.
So what exactly is Drollinger teaching members of Congress? Just that "America's bankrupting entitlement policies stem from bad theology" - namely, the Social Gospel, which is an "aberrent" and "heretical" theology that is a "perversion, or a corruption of what the Bible actually teaches":
It follows that the way a legislator understands God via his or her theology, or lack thereof, will determine their ideology in both personal and policy formation ... If the Social Gospel is unfounded in Scripture, such thinking and ideology should be soundly rejected. Why? Whenever an individual or society veers from the owner’s handbook, the way therein always proves detrimental.
...
[N]owhere in Scripture does God assign the specific responsibility to Government to provide entitlements for its citizenry, whereas Scripture does assign specific entitlement responsibilities to various individuals and other institutions (as previously seen in this study). Again, one could argue that since Scripture does not prohibit Government from directly aiding the poor that such is biblically permissible. But to the degree any institution engages in responsibilities outside of its biblically-explicit God-ordained role(s) is the same degree to which it becomes inefficient and wasteful. 1 Peter 2: 13-14 states the specific role of Government is this: “Reward those who do good and punish those who do evil.”
The misunderstandings and supposed scriptural justifications for enormous government-based entitlement programs stem not from Christianity but from another misguided religion. Outside the explicit ordinances of the Scriptures, it follows that direct governmental provisions of entitlements lead not to selfsufficiency but by and large the ruin of both the individual recipient and the nation’s treasury.
May God grant you, our nation’s leader’s great wisdom to transition our policies to biblically-informed positions relative to best helping the poor and bereft—people whom you and I love and people whom God loves.
