Sen. Thune recently sat down with Christianity Today Magazine. Some excerpts:
How does your Christian college education [Biola, '83] impact your work today?
I think it builds a good solid foundation, not only in my field of study which was business administration, but also the Bible courses that you take. The solid instruction and having a worldview that helps you see things in context give me a grounding and a foundation on which to make decisions. And frankly it helps shape the decisions that I make in my life, whether that's in my professional life or my personal life. But having gone to Biola was a great foundation.
Do you find fellowship with other legislators?
I do. There are several different Bible study groups on Capitol Hill. I've not had an opportunity yet in the Senate to really get immersed. But when I was a member of the House, there were a couple of organizations, one called Christian Embassy that is affiliated with Campus Crusade for Christ whose mission it is to reach out and reach and disciple people in the legislative branch, the executive branch, and in the military at the Pentagon. And also the C Street ministry, which initially came from Doug Coe. Coe was influential at Chuck Colson's conversion too. But those are a couple of ministries that are active out there. And there are other members of Congress who come to those events. There are a number who are very serious about their faith. I do have a chance to interact with them.
Skipping back to foreign policy, why might Christians have a special interest in seeing democracy spread in the Middle East?
Christians obviously want to see people come to the Christian faith, but they want to see people have the choice to be able to choose. Religious freedom, political freedom, political liberty, and economic freedom all tend to go hand in hand. Liberating Iraq from decades of tyranny and dictatorship, bringing about political freedom, will create an atmosphere of where religious freedom will come to Iraq. And that opens the door, obviously, for the Christian faith there as well.
Christians look around the world and want to see people who are in a position to be able to make decisions, to have the freedoms that we enjoy in this country. That is, like the President says, our birthright. Our Declaration of Independence, our Founding Fathers said, "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." And those rights are endowed by our Creator, they're not bestowed by any government.
It's a really good interview, a must-read for today. Being a Evangelical Christian myself, it was interesting to read about Sen. Thune's faith and how he approaches life as a Christian.
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