Skip to main content

Christians and Politics

Many Christians believe that Christianity and electoral politics do not mix. The popular model would have us waiting for escape from this “vale of tears” or wringing our hands in observation of the “signs of the times” as we await the rapture. While others are more to the point: electoral politics and the work of culture in general, they say, is dirty stuff in which Christians, called to purity, should not sully themselves. So, different motivations, but the same end: isolationist occupation in the world.

But God does not call his Church to be a cultural eunuch. Clearly God wants us to obey him; he calls us out of darkness into light to do his will. But he calls us to do his will in our bodies and in the concrete processes of history. There is no escaping the fact that though our citizenship is in heaven the world is our temporary address. How shall we treat it? Shall we not pick up after ourselves? Or worse, shall we let our godless roommates trash the place while we sit by indifferent to their actions because we are too holy to care?

Perhaps it would help if we saw the question of Christians and politics as part of a larger question: that of the Christian’s relationship with the world. Jesus calls us “out of the world” only to send us back “into the world” as his ambassadors. What a great opportunity politics affords the Church to be just that: an ambassador for Christ.

As a forum for ministry, electoral politics allows us to pick up after our dirty roommates and after dirty selves. But let us remember that unless our effort is first one of reforming our own hearts and also that of our roommate’s heart from one of hatred of the landlord to one of love for him, our cultural work will have been for naught.
Labels:

Comments

  1. AnonymousAugust 29, 2010 at 2:42 PM

    Your post fits a Swedish very well, we have election day September 19

    R.Ö.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousSeptember 15, 2010 at 8:55 AM

    Good evening Pastor, I like the way you perceived things regarding the right position of Christianity...

    Our Team Legato Music for Christ are fond of traveling to different places rendering our Love Songs for Jesus in whom we love most..

    Please pray for our Team, may we serve God's Calling in this Generation until the time we meet each other in Heaven.

    God Speed.

    ReplyDelete
  3. John BarberSeptember 21, 2010 at 9:46 AM

    @ team legato. Thanks for the post. Will certainly pray for your team. God's speed to you as well. John...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Spurgeon Doesn't Help Us With Trump

“ Of two evils, choose neither ." Spurgeon's quote has been posted numerous times on social media by Christians who find themselves in a moral conundrum at the very thought of voting for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Here’s the problem with Spurgeon’s idea. Biblically there is no such thing as a choice between two evils. Let me explain. Moral philosophers and theologians have long spoken of the problem of "tragic moral choice", also known as the “incommensurability in values.” The man on the street simply calls it “choosing between the lesser of two evils.”   The best known example of tragic moral choice is the one about the Nazis during WW II. Do you handover the Jews knowing that your choice makes you complicit in their deaths? Or do you lie and violate the Ninth Commandment? The Lutheran scholar, John Warwick Montgomery, has argued that such choices are unavoidable and of necessity cause us to sin. The Bible, however, takes a dim view of the...
66 comments
Read more

Tullian Tchividjian Bounces Back?

It is unfortunate but every so often a Christian, including a pastor, wanders away from the sheepfold and finds himself perilously ensnared by sin and in grave danger. In keeping with the duty of the church, especially its elders, it becomes necessary to vigorously seek the full repentance and restoration of the lost sheep. As in the case of the prodigal son (Luke 15:3-8) the contrite heart is one both heaven and the faithful saints celebrate.  In the case of Tullian Tchividjian we have an example of a lost under-shepherd. Having admitted to adultery, the South Florida Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) deposed  Tchividjian on August 11, 2015, ruling him unfit for Christian ministry. Tchividjian followed his removal from the pastoral office by filing for divorce from his wife, Kim, on August 27 th . They were married in 1994 and together have three children. Deposition from office is a serious infliction of church discipline. The goal of all ...
24 comments
Read more

Andy Stanley and the “NEW Hermeneutic”

The problem of faith and reason is longstanding in the history of theology. Augustine held that faith aids reason ( credo ut intelligam ) and that reason aids faith ( intelligo un creadam ). The church father is, however, inclined to stress the later over the former. It was with Thomas Aquinas, and his Summa Theologica , that the effort to reconcile faith and reason reached its apex. Rejecting the medieval doctrine of double truth, he placed natural reason prior to faith in effectively every area of the Christian life. The restrictions are the mysteries of the faith that reason cannot penetrate. Thomas’ affirmation of the high role of native reason in Christian belief is linked to his stress on dialectical method in study, seminally set forth by Peter Abelard. The form of study is dependent largely on logic to argue both sides of a theological question. Christian belief is thus the proper result of process or synthesis. Faith then assents to the final proposition arrived at by ...
2 comments
Read more