Wednesday, April 20, 2005

 

More On Christians In Politics

This post from yesterday drew quite a bit of comment. Please go read teh post and the comments, I'll wait...OK -- You're back. Just a few comments I feel compelled to make.

Submission to governmental authority. I agree, Paul admonishes us to do precisely that. but we are in a remarkably different place in America today than the people Paul spoke to 2000 years ago. Then government was "the other." It was somewhat oppressive and inflicted upon them by raw authority, generally military might. But in the United States of America, we ARE the governmental authority. Submission to that authority is, precisely, political involvement.

Final Solutions Of course, evangelism is the best solution to the world's problems. But being involved poltically is not necessarily about solving the world's problems. It is, as I said, about being a good citizen -- submitting to the government's authority.

I do agree that the way America is set up the church should be fairly limited in its poitical activity, but not Christians. I also think that evangelism is the primary call of the church, and for the church to dilute that activity with political activism is a problem. But the church is composed of lots of individuals, with many gifts and callings -- including politics. the church cannot stand in the way of those people exercising their gifts, it should in fact encourage it.

Humility and Bigotry In this age of outright religious bigotry, what is the correct response? Are we, as the houseslaves of old, to remain humble and avoid "stirring up massa" by not asserting our rights under the American political system, or do we point out that bigotry, and not let it silence us? In the ancient Roman empire, I think Paul would tell us to choose the first option, but in America, I think the latter.

|

<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

Site Feed

Blogotional

eXTReMe Tracker

Blogarama - The Blog Directory