I’ve been captured, recently, by the paraphrase of Romans 8:31-39, as found in the Scottish Psalter, “Let Christian faith and hope dispel,” particularly the last line of the first verse, which sets the tone for the entire song with its adherence to clear exegesis of its scriptural antecedent:
Let Christian faith and hope dispel
The fears from which we hide,
For who would dare oppose us now
That God is at our side?
Many people, reading their own agendas into Romans 8:31, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” argue that God is ON their side in some area of conflict. But the whole of Romans 8:31-39 is subject to its context especially but not only the eighth chapter of Romans, which makes it pretty clear that God is not so much ON the side of those who follow Him but AT their side to comfort, cheer, aid, encourage, etc., as they are on His side.
Big difference.
And this is especially important as those who are labeled–by the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind and even by themselves at times–the “religious right” assert their own “traditional values”. If those values are not clearly godly values, claiming that God is on their side passes hubris on into slander. I’d just caution such folks to be careful, to examine those “traditional values” (such a stupid term; whose traditions, specifically what values?) and only claim to be trying to seek godly values as those things they assert have solid scriptural basis.
Just an observation from an amateur armchair (yeh, the redundancy is necessary :-)) historian/theologian/social-political observer.
BTW, this is the basis of just one of many reasons that Mike Huckabee gives me the heebie-jeebies. He cloaks his Phariseeism on political speech, but he just makes my skin crawl.