Social Conservatives: Truth, not Tradition

Townhall.com interviewed social conservatives attending a Values Voters Summit last week.

Asked about the major misconceptions from the Left about social conservatives, individuals who defend life, family, marriage, etc.

One young man argued that the Christian Church has not done a good job of spreading the Good News.

I could not agree more. Churches have become mired in a message of self-help and self-improvement. These are "progressive" principles. Man makes no progress in himself. He needs Himself.

Another pastor, an African-American who ministers to a predominantly Democratic congregations, talked about how social conservatives need to show up in their communities, in their towns, "where we are often not seen".

The last comment was powerful, much needed for free people who believe in God, Christ, and the biblical foundations of this nation:

We have to engage the culture. We can't sit back in our little churches and say 'Praise Jesus, he's coming soon. I'm not going to get involved. All Christians need to get involved in the culture, and start speaking truth to power.

BAM! Start speaking truth to power.

Now, from that point, the need for truth, I need to criticize one remark from the Townhall.com post:

Are social conservatives struggling to share their message? At the 2014 Values Voter Summit last weekend, some conference-goers said its the case when The Daily Signal asked them to specify the Lefts common misconceptions about social conservatives and what they could do to communicate and advance traditional values.

The argument for marriage as one man and one woman, that life begins at conception, that the best environment for a child is a home with a mom and a dad, are not traditional arguments.

They are the truth!

The caption of the St. George Cross reads in Greek:
"The truth shall set you free!"

Defenders of marriage amendments in Kentucky and Indiana argued for maintain the definition of marriage between  one man and one woman based on tradition. The Reagan appointee, Judge Posner. brushed aside those arguments, reminding the litigants that at one time, traditional marriage prevented a biracial couples from marrying each other.

Tradition is not a strong argument for promoting marriage, life, or liberty in general, because apart from the preaching of the Gospel, liberty for many (as opposed to the few and well-connected) is a relatively recent phenomenon in human history.

The strength of an argument, of an institution cannot rest on tradition, but truth. What was, is, and always will be trumps the arguments based on tradition, and even reason.

Conservatives cannot rely on tradition as an argument, in part because this country now has a tradition of federal entitlements and government overspending. True conservatism is the radical agenda today, and rightly so. The Tea Party movement is more than a return to the past, but a restoration of the truth that the Constitution defined limited government and individual liberty as the standard of rule, not the expansion of the state at the expense of the individual.

The arguments from social conservatives for marriage, for life, for family are the arguments for the true and just order of time and society. It is time to fight from victory, not defending tradition, but asserting the truth, and not relenting, not even for one hour.