Tuesday, November 21, 2006
The Church and Political Action
I could not agree more with the basic sentiment and ideas behind this post at RedBlueChristian, but I think it ignores a few issues in the way. Let's look at what I like first:
Consider for example abortion. The problem is not just that it is legal, no the problem in society is that it is promoted. If it were somehow quietly legal our need for political action might not be so great, but the legalization and rulings that have come in its wake have served not simply to make it available, but to make it plentiful and to stifle the voices of opposition. Imagine if you will a PR campaign against abortion on the level of the government funded campaigns we see about smoking? - But no, that would somehow be an infringement of civil rights. You see we do not care only about the unborn of Christians, but about every unborn child, we do not confine our concerns purely to those we have manged to bring into our fold.
I also like some of the suggestions Allan Bevere makes, but there is a caveat:
We have come a long way from the government of old which sought to intrude as little as possible on societal activity. The government now interesects on virtually every aspect of life. Which means Christians must act with government.
But then the church must also work with engineers to build buildings and many others that do not have direct action in the called work of the church. The answer concerning the church and politics is not avoidance, but the same answer as when the church works with any other professions - we have to make good Christian politicians. This means the church does have to put some effort and energy into deciding stances on political issues. It is not the mission of the church, and the church should not be distracted from its mission, but we cannot avoid it.
Related Tags: church, politics, politicians, action, society
Paul Weyrich, the man who coined the phrase, "Moral Majority," writes in his book Taking Stock, "we have a trivial agenda. What I mean is that, if all the policies we have called for were put into effect tomorrow, the basic trends in our culture, the trends that are bringing about our decline as a nation and as a civilization, would not be changed. They would be slowed but not reversed." We would not bring about the spectrum shift we need.This is so true, the mission of the church is not a political one, and in some ways the areas of political action that we choose are trivial, but I do think this simplifies the equation a little.
Consider for example abortion. The problem is not just that it is legal, no the problem in society is that it is promoted. If it were somehow quietly legal our need for political action might not be so great, but the legalization and rulings that have come in its wake have served not simply to make it available, but to make it plentiful and to stifle the voices of opposition. Imagine if you will a PR campaign against abortion on the level of the government funded campaigns we see about smoking? - But no, that would somehow be an infringement of civil rights. You see we do not care only about the unborn of Christians, but about every unborn child, we do not confine our concerns purely to those we have manged to bring into our fold.
I also like some of the suggestions Allan Bevere makes, but there is a caveat:
What if every church in this country offered to care for a pregnant mom and her child, seeing to it that the necessary medical care were provided, and then after the birth of the child, assisting this new family in getting on its feet? I know there are Christian organizations doing this, but what if every church in the United States made such a commitment? The church would be the church in a way that the rest of the society could not ignore. What kind of claim would the church embody about the significance of children, if we put our time, energy, and money into such practices, instead of picket signs and lobbyists? Such an approach would be in keeping with the early church, whose families went about on the Roman hillsides at night picking up all the infants left to die by their families to exposure or wild animals because their families did not want them. Those early Christians took such doomed children into their homes to raise them as Christians.Now, I'd love to see every church do such things, but the law actually stands in the way. The people we chose to help would have to come to us, we could not go to them. And then there is the matter of funding. Forget the faith-based initiative, what about confiscatory tax policy that lowers the pool of money available in society in general to pursue such worthy goals.
We have come a long way from the government of old which sought to intrude as little as possible on societal activity. The government now interesects on virtually every aspect of life. Which means Christians must act with government.
But then the church must also work with engineers to build buildings and many others that do not have direct action in the called work of the church. The answer concerning the church and politics is not avoidance, but the same answer as when the church works with any other professions - we have to make good Christian politicians. This means the church does have to put some effort and energy into deciding stances on political issues. It is not the mission of the church, and the church should not be distracted from its mission, but we cannot avoid it.
Related Tags: church, politics, politicians, action, society
