Texas will gain two more congressional seats and seven states will each lose a seat as a result of population shifts recorded in the 2020 Census, the Census Bureau said Monday in the release of its first round of data from the survey taken last year. In total, seven seats shifted affecting 13 states. Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon each gained one seat in addition to Texas. California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia each lost one seat.
Why should Christians care about the redistricting of Congress? An insightful answer comes from one of our recent interviewees, John Cooper. He said, “All politics is religious. At some point, there will always be a god of the system, whatever law people believe in... So, we need to speak into it. If Jesus is Lord, he's got to be Lord of everything. So, he needs to be Lord of the ethical realm, of the civil realm, of the realm of laws.” The platforms of the two main parties advocate for two different worldviews, which determines the kinds of bills that are introduced and passed by the majority party in Congress. Recent bills such as the “Equality Act” reflect an unbiblical view of human sexuality, and the “For The People Act” would jeopardize the integrity of our elections, which is reflective of “unequal weights and unequal measures” which are detestable to God (Proverbs 20:10). There is no area of society which Jesus does not have authority over. Just as we seek His will in other areas of our life, we must also seek to do His will in our political involvement. One additional census fact worth noting is that the total population grew by only 7.4% in the last ten years, the second-slowest increase in history. Part of this may be due to our declining birth rate. A recent study conducted by the Institute for Family Studies found that high-income countries become “workist” and experience declining birth rates: “As societies emphasize personal meaning and value through work, people find less meaning and value in families.” Many Christians don’t know how to apply a Biblical worldview to politics; could it be that we don’t know how to apply it to the family as well?
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