I have noticed a rise of “identity politics” with people siding with “their people”. I have watched people on both the left and the right advocate positions that seem to violate the spirit of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I would encourage people to take a few minutes and give the following prompt to a couple of LLMs as a small sanity check of the positions the align themselves with

what are some of the positions of current right wing republicans and of the “progressives” which are out of spirit with the visions of government found in the Declaration of Independence and the US constitution?

While I don’t 100% agree with “answers” provided by the LLMs, I found them worthy of consideration, not something to be immediately discarded. I long for the days where people were not so wed to identity politics, and engaged in thoughtful discussions about policy, if not reasoning from first principles.

Government through a Biblical Lens

Many years ago I took a class which was about the philosophy of government which required us to write a paper which summarized our personal philosophy of government based on what we learned in the class and from our personal experience.  As a new Christian I used the issues identified by the great political philosophers combined with major themes in the Bible to construct my paper. One of these days I will pull the paper out from my archives and post it.

This morning I decided to ask several LLMs (DeepSeek, Grok, Chat-GPT, Llama, and Claude) to perform a similar task.

I started with asking for a Biblical viewpoint of government, since that is what I tried to capture in the paper I wrote.  I didn’t ask it to explicitly use major political philosopher’s thinking, but I expected issues they raised would influence how the LLM responded. I provided the following prompt.  The responses were similar across all the LLMs.  Below is the response from Chat-GPT 4.5 which was most complete 

According to the Bible, in recognizing the New Testament takes priority over the old testament, and that much of the Bible is a description of what happened, not what should be….

Is there a form of government that is better than other models? What is the role of government? What are the key principles that a government should embrace? What are the most important things for a government to do? What is a list of things that the government should not do?

What sort of policies and actions would be antithetical to this model of government in other words what is a warning sign that our government is moving in a direction that God would not desire

Taking the New Testament as primary and recognizing that much of Scripture is descriptive rather than prescriptive, we can still extract a biblical vision of what good governance should look like—especially when filtered through the teachings and priorities of Jesus. Here’s a structured framework for understanding government through that lens:

Is there a form of government better than other models?

Biblically, there is no single mandated form (monarchy, democracy, etc.). However:

• Servant leadership (Matt 20:25–28) is consistently affirmed as the ideal posture for leaders.
• Governments that protect the vulnerable, promote justice, and allow freedom for righteousness to flourish are more aligned with biblical values.
• Democratic republics with checks and balances, rule of law, and accountability structures tend to reflect the New Testament vision of humility, mutual submission, and community responsibility better than authoritarian models.

What is the role of government?

Romans 13:1–7 and 1 Peter 2:13–17 are central texts. Key roles include:

• Promote justice – punish evil and commend what is good.
• Protect the vulnerable – reflect God’s special concern for the poor, the stranger, the orphan, and the widow (Isaiah 1:17, James 1:27).
• Maintain order – enabling peaceable life so the gospel and human flourishing can proceed (1 Tim 2:1–4).
• Restrain evil – not by controlling hearts but limiting harmful actions.

The government is a servant, not a savior. It should create the conditions where virtue can thrive, but it cannot impose virtue.

What are the key principles a government should embrace?

• Justice (Micah 6:8) – ensuring fair treatment and equity under the law.
• Humility and Service (Mark 10:42–45) – rulers serve the people, not vice versa.
• Accountability – leaders are stewards, not owners (Luke 12:48).
• Freedom of conscience – essential to allow genuine faith and moral agency (Romans 14).
• Protection of the weak – reflecting God’s concern for the marginalized.
• Peace and order – promoting public tranquility and cooperation (1 Tim 2:1–2).
• Limited power – not attempting to take over God’s role in people’s lives.

What are the most important things for a government to do?

• Uphold justice and the rule of law fairly and impartially.
• Protect citizens from violence and coercion (both internal and external).
• Preserve freedoms necessary for worship, speech, association, and family.
• Enable economic and social structures that allow people to flourish.
• Ensure basic infrastructure that serves the common good.
• Create space for communities, including churches, to thrive and serve.
• Resist favoritism or oppression, especially for the sake of the powerful.

What should a government not do?

• Force religious belief or practice – faith must be free (Matthew 22:21).
• Suppress conscience – respect moral agency under God.
• Seek total control over people’s lives – avoid idolatrous claims to sovereignty (Rev 13).
• Exploit or oppress for the benefit of elites (Isaiah 10:1–2).
• Confuse itself with God – governments are temporal, fallible, and accountable.
• Encourage division or injustice – which sows societal chaos and resentment.
• Pursue empire or domination rather than justice and peace.

That’s a deep and essential question. When a government begins to drift away from God’s design—as modeled by Jesus and the New Testament call to justice, humility, and service—there are clear warning signs that can help God’s people discern the times. These warning signs emerge from Scripture’s consistent themes and the lived wisdom of history.

Warning Signs: When a Government Moves Away from God’s Desire

Here are key policy trends, attitudes, and actions that are antithetical to the biblical model of government:

• Suppression of Conscience and Religious Liberty
  • Red Flags:
    • Criminalizing or penalizing peaceful religious expression.
    • Forcing participation in actions that violate moral convictions.
    • Government setting itself up as the moral authority over individual faith.
  • Why It Matters: God grants conscience and calls for faith freely chosen (Romans 14, Acts 5:29, Matt 22:21).
• Use of Power for Self-Preservation or Domination
  • Red Flags:
    • Leaders enriching themselves or clinging to power unjustly.
    • Intimidation, propaganda, or violent suppression of opposition.
    • Lack of accountability or transparency.
  • Why It Matters: Jesus warned against rulers who “lord it over” others (Mark 10:42–45). Government is to serve, not rule with fear.
• Favoritism Toward the Rich and Powerful
  • Red Flags:
    • Policies that protect corporations or elites at the expense of the poor.
    • Unequal access to justice, education, or housing.
    • Tax or legal structures that entrench inequality.
  • Why It Matters: God condemns “those who make unjust laws… to deny justice to the oppressed” (Isaiah 10:1–2; James 2:1–9).
• Marginalization or Dehumanization of Groups
  • Red Flags:
    • Nationalism that devalues immigrants or minorities.
    • Language that paints some people as “less than” or dangerous.
    • Policies designed to exclude rather than restore.
  • Why It Matters: All are made in God’s image; Jesus ministered to Samaritans, Gentiles, and outcasts (Luke 10:25–37, John 4, Galatians 3:28).
• Erosion of Truth and Prophetic Voices
  • Red Flags:
    • Normalizing lies, manipulation, or spin in public discourse.
    • Silencing journalists, whistleblowers, or prophetic voices.
    • Replacing truth with tribal loyalty.
  • Why It Matters: God desires truth in the inward parts (Psalm 51:6); prophets were often unpopular truth-tellers (Jeremiah, Amos).
• Centralization of Power and Undermining of Institutions
  • Red Flags:
    • Dismissing courts, legislatures, or electoral processes as “rigged.”
    • Seeking unchecked executive power.
    • Rewriting laws to consolidate authority.
  • Why It Matters: Power should be shared and limited to prevent idolatry of the state (Deut 17:14–20; Revelation 13).
• Culture of Fear, Not Love
  • Red Flags:
    • Policies fueled by fear of the “other” rather than love of neighbor.
    • Justifying cruelty “for our safety.”
    • Political rhetoric designed to divide.
  • Why It Matters: Perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18); fear is a tool of coercion, not the kingdom.
• Neglect of the Poor, Sick, and Imprisoned
  • Red Flags:
    • Cuts to social support while increasing military or corporate budgets.
    • Ignoring prison reform or healthcare for the vulnerable.
    • Lack of concern for those at the margins.
  • Why It Matters: Jesus identifies with “the least of these” (Matt 25:31–46). To neglect them is to neglect Him.

Summary Table: Godly vs. Godless Government Tendencies

God-Desiring Government	God-Defying Drift
Serves all citizens humbly	Protects the powerfu
Promotes truth, justice, and mercy	Embraces propaganda, injustice, and cruelty
Protects conscience and freedom	Controls thought, punishes dissent
Limits power, encourages accountability	Centralizes authority, suppresses scrutiny
Uplifts the vulnerable	Abandons the poor and outcast
Welcomes the stranger	Scapegoats outsiders
Encourages peace and order	Sows fear, violence, and division

Greatest Political Philosopher?

I was curious what would happen if I explicitly removed the Biblical lens.  I found that with several of the systems my questions about a Biblical framework seemed to bias the answers I got. To address this, I logged in to the system using different credentials, and then provided the following prompt

who are the greatest political philosophers from the world, what are the key themes.

The answers varied a bit, but all included Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Mill.  There were a number of people who showed up frequently but not universally: Aquinas, Machiavelli, Marx, Hayek, Rawls and Nozick.

This list it’s nearly identical to the “political philosophy reader” for my political philosophy class. This suggests that the training data for the LLMs I queried is highly influenced by material “from the west”.

When I explicitly asked for non western  philosophers, deepseek gave me Chinese: Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi, Feizi, Laozi… but not Mao. Indian: Kautilya (Chanakya), Shanti Parva (Mahabharata). Islamic: Al-Farabi, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Khaldu, Ayatollah Khomeini.  African: Ubuntu (culture not thinker), Kwame Nkrumah, Amilcar Cabral. Indigenous Traditions: Haudenosaunee (Iroquois),  Great Law of Peace, Māori tikanga (New Zealand)

Political Philosophers Synthesis

I provided the following prompt to each of the LLMs

Synthesis the greatest political philosopher’s insights as to what an ideal government would look like.

Is there a form of government that is better than other models? What is the role of government? What are the key principles that a government should embrace? What are the most important things for a government to do? What is a list of things that the government should not do?

What sort of policies and actions would be antithetical to this model of government

I am not going to include the responses in this post… it’s already too long.  I would encourage the reader to explore these ideas with the LLM of their choice.

There was a high degree of overlap between the Biblical,  “Western”, and “Global” to the role of government, what a government should, and shouldn’t do. Key principles had overlap but differed in the basis of the key principles. I found it interesting that the “Global” brought in the concerns of social cohesion, an emphasis of meritocracy/moral excellence of their leaders, and highlighted communal responsibilities of the citizens.