The complaint of the left is often "That darned Christian right is trying to seize power." I don't get it, but look around the Christian blogosphere, and you'll find that, to my surprise, much of what the Christian bloggers are blogging about is politics. Now, perhaps that's a real "attention-getter", something that really makes for readership. But these people are passionate about it, so I suspect it's their real passion, not merely a ploy for readers. And I'm puzzled.
As I've said other times (more than once), I'm often confused. While others are dogmatic, I'm often in a quandary about what is right. This is another one of those instances. You see, I can see both sides of this question and I'm not coming up with any solid answers. Maybe you, my faithful but few readers, can help.
On the one hand, I understand that God's laws are there for our benefit. I understand that a moral society is better than an immoral society. I understand that people are happier if they have higher morals. I understand that the Creator of human beings knows best how those creations operate. He knows that we are best off when we don't lust, covet, murder, cheat, steal, lie and so on. And I also understand that we live in a nation whose government is supposed to be "of the people, by the people, and for the people." As such, we have an obligation to be involved to some degree in how our country is run. We need to vote, to be heard, to let our representatives know what we want, and so on.
On the other hand, I understand that a moral society doesn't put a single person in heaven. I understand that the purpose of Christianity is to spread, not Christian virtue, but the Gospel. The Gospel includes the recognition that Man is sinful, but it doesn't dwell there. Further, I understand that we are commanded to be a light, to spread the Gospel, to represent Christ to the world around us. But I also see that nowhere in Scripture does Jesus complain about the government, nor does Paul address social reform, nor does Peter call for political change. I see no one arguing that slavery, for instance, is sinful and ought to be stopped or that taxation without representation is evil. I don't see anyone in Scripture complaining about the poor treatment of Christians by the world around them. Instead, I see Jesus commanding His fellow Jews to pay their taxes and Paul explaining to Christians how to operate within the less-than-optimum environment of slavery and Peter writing that suffering for Christ is a blessing.
So I'm confused. Exactly how far are we supposed to go to make a moral society? Exactly what is our responsibility in terms of the politics of our society? How deeply should we be immersed in the ethical and political questions of our day? I see both sides of the equation and I can't come up with an answer.
I am firmly convinced that the politically disconnected Christian is wrong in that choice. We have an obligation, living in this country, to vote, for instance. I am equally convinced that Christians who are involved in politics to the exclusion of the Gospel are equally wrong in that choice. I mean, if they managed to achieve their goal of a perfect government, we'd still have a nation, well-run to be sure, going to Hell because the Gospel is not preached. And I know that individuals are called to individual callings, which might include a political vocation. But I cannot imagine that God has decided that His primary thrust in America today is to leave off the Gospel and get this country back on track, and that's what I would conclude from the many loudly complaining Christian blogs and other outlets I see today.
So ... what's the right answer? What is our responsibility, and what is not our responsibility? Are Christian voices too immersed in politics and devoid of the Gospel, or am I missing something here? Why does it seem that the biggest concern among so many Christians is our fair treatment and obtaining a "good government" with hardly a word about what Christianity is really all about? Is that the way it should be, or are we missing something? What is the right thing to do? I don't really know.
6 comments:
I think you've come to the answer. We cannot, as Christians, expect a bunch of non-Christians to act like they love the Lord. Our primary concern is to be going about the gospel. A nation that is full of believers is expected to live like they love the Lord. This may seem overly simplistic, but I think that we can take a page from our friends at Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum (whether, as a Christian, you agree with them or not). They are fighting for change on a government level with regards to Creation and Evolution and the education in our country, but they are primarily about the gospel and altering a person's worldview. When that happens, we will see actual change.
You know as well as I do that non-believers are enslaved to sin, so no matter how much we plead with our government, nothing will change until there hearts have.
The worst thing we could do is believe the canard that we are not supposed to espouse our faith in public. That's a ploy to get stupid Christians to stay at home on election day or, better yet, to vote Democratic.:-)
Romans 13 clearly explains that we are to respect authority but also gives the job description of the ruler as "God's servant to do you good". A Christ follower is a logical candidate for that position. Erastus is proudly presented as "the city's director of public works" in chapter 16. So clearly there is an obligation for Christians to lead.
As Ryan pointed out, the conservative Christians are more focused on the gospel. The Religious Left is more focused on, as one bumper sticker puts it, "doing their share to piss off the Religious Right". [Check out NCCC gen. sec. "Rev." Bob Edgar's Religious Right-bashing site here.] Although I don't agree with everything the so-called Religious Right has endorsed, I see the Left as being deliberately and rebelliously divisive. For instance, the Word clearly protects the unborn, and the Left has no Christian leg to stand on in espousing abortion, yet they do. That is just one issue of several in which the Left impugns the gospel and then calls the Right divisive for opposing them.
Last, should we put our head in the sand and wait passively for Jesus' return, we turn our world over to the secularists who believe "it's all Caesar's". That would, at the very least, mean that we are also denying our Christ.
I agree with your premise that the church is called to share the gospel and the gospel is not the moralistic gospel of those who are trying to conform our society into what they think a Christian nation looks like. I think the William Inboden quote that I put in the Reformed Chicks sidebar addresses this topic perfectly -- civil religion is not Christianity.
Having said that, you are aware that we do blog quite a bit about politics and there is a reason for that. We are a current affairs blog and we blog about what interests us. Both Susan and I are interested in politics (I've been interested in politics and current affairs since I was a teenager) and so when we see a news story that generates an opinion, we blog about it whether it's Christian persecution, something dumb the president said, something dumb the Democrats said, the war, some theological issue that I've blogged about on Life Under the Sun, something I noticed on someone's blog, atheism (this is a topic that I've started to give a lot of thought to and will continue to blog about over the summer), etc.
I personally don't think that it's an either or. I can blog about politics and about God and even the gospel and can sometimes do it in the same post :-)
I think, Jim, I did say that we need to be engaged. You're right; we aren't to be excluded ... or to exclude ourselves.
My question, Michele, was how much of our emphasis should be on politics.
I've been thinking about this question a lot lately because I've decided to expand what we've been doing on the blog. I want to put more reformed theology on the blog but I still want to keep it a current events blog because I do have readers who come to out blog for the politics. I'm deliberately trying to do a mix. I want to keep blogging about politics because I love it but I also love the Lord :-) and his word, so I'm trying to find the right balance.
But one thing is for sure, politics should not be where we put our hope. As you and I both know, it's only the gospel that will transform lives. Government can't do it and Christians should stop trying to get the government to institute a Christianized nation. The church's job is to spread the gospel, the states job is govern the people -- not force them to act like Christians.
(Note: haven't read previous comments yet. Not responding to them yet. Responding to this:)
And I also understand that we live in a nation whose government is supposed to be "of the people, by the people, and for the people." As such, we have an obligation to be involved to some degree in how our country is run. We need to vote, to be heard, to let our representatives know what we want, and so on.
... But I also see that nowhere in Scripture does Jesus complain about the government, nor does Paul address social reform,
You miss (at least) one point. Jesus/Paul etc. were not the rulers of their society (except in the sense that Jesus was the ruler of EVERY society). We however, make up part of the 'we the people' that is supposed to be ruling ours. So for an analysis of how we should act we have to look, for example, at the passages in proverbs for how 'a king' should behave, passages in the law addressed to the civil magistrate, etc.
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