Public policy begins in the home and over the back fence.

“And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” Deuteronomy 6.6, 7

It would be a mistake to believe that public policy is made by government in the first instance. The loci of public policy-making are three: conversation, publication, and participation. These are where public policy is made, and of these three, the first is by far the most important.

The policies by which a free people are governed are incubated among the people, beginning in homes and neighborhoods all across the country. What parents teach their children to believe, the priorities they inculcate in them, the values they instill – these will have long-term implications for and effects on the policies of government.

Additionally, what people talk about with one another as they discuss issues, candidates, and current events also shapes public policy. As German sociologist Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann has shown, those who are the most active and conversant regarding their views and demands are likely to carry the day in democratic societies such as ours. The more people talk about their issues, the bolder they become. The bolder and more outspoken they become, the more a “spiral of silence” begins to engulf those who think otherwise. Politicians not well-versed in the logic of public policy will follow the clamoring and act accordingly.

So it is very important that believers in Jesus Christ make the best use of every opportunity to talk about what is good and pleasing to God. They must teach their children well and insist that their churches assist them in this process. They must learn to think about the Law of God and its applications to matters of public policy. They must not fear to bring the Law into conversations about contemporary issues, and, when they do so, they should be prepared to show the wisdom of the Law and to explain the promise of blessing it contains.

If believers will not use daily conversation – in their homes, their places of employment, among their friends, with their neighbors – they can expect the media and special interest groups to set the public policy agenda. But imagine a nation of scores of millions of people, deeply conversant with God’s holy and righteous and good Law, eager to discuss and able to defend the kinds of public policies it presents. There is more power in conversation than in either or both of the other loci of public policy-making.

In this democracy “we the people” represent the bottom-line of government. Public policy-making begins with us. Believers in Jesus Christ must make the best use of this duty to press for policies consistent with God’s good and perfect will and to resist those which are otherwise intended. Let us study and prepare and work together to make the best use of conversation as the framework and foundation for this important work.

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