Friday, February 09, 2007

 

What Is The Church's Business

In The Agora linked recently to the news that the PC(USA) had acted in concert with "Jewish groups" to call for an increase in the minimum wage. Seth wisecracks about the fact that this seems mighty worldly as a means of repairing the damage done by the PC(USA)'s recently abandoned Israeli divestment policy. I have to agree.

I also have to agree with Seth's closing question
Substantive theological exchange?
You see that raises the question of precisely what the church should and should not be doing. I berated Evangelicalism yesterday, but there is good with the bad in that movement. Evangelicalism arose from the great American experiment of religious pluralism that pretty much necessitated the establishment and free exercise clauses of the constitution. In its emphasis on individual salvation, Evangelicalism took the opportunities offered by the constitution and made the indidividual the instrument by which the church can exercise its will on the state. This was a good thing. As it took hold, the state and religion have flourished. But as I pointed out yesterday, taken to its extreme, this movement, like all others, gets out of hand.

This is part of the reason I am evangelical in the context of a more traditional denomination, for the denomination provides the checks on rampant evangelicalism. However, it is obvious from this, and many other boneheaded moves the PC(USA) has made, that the denomination has still not quite figured out how to change its efforts at working these things out - choosing to act directly instead of through its membership.

The problem with this approach is that as the church acts on a purely political level, instead of seeking to change lives that in turn act politically, it attracts people interested in the politics, but not the religious. I do not here refer to the alliance with the Jewish groups, nothing wrong with allying yourself with other religions for social action. I talk instead about people inside the PC(USA) who are there almost purely for political action, with little or no concern about personal faith or development. That frankly is the source of the great tensions in the PC(USA).

Direct political action simply is not the church's business, and when it acts so, it does so at the expense of the mission to which Christ called it. My prayer for my belived PC(USA) would be that it would hold fast the mission, and let the members do the politics.

NOTE: I did not even get into how incredibly stupid a political action raising the minimum wage is - it's a Democrat hobby horse and that's all it is. This is a strictly politically partisan move on the PC(USA)'s part, which is stupid piled on stupid.

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