The Church & Politics
Posted by truthtalklive on August 1, 2007
Should Christians just stick to the gospel and stay out of politics?
Todays guest host: Gary DeMar www.americanvision.org
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kandace said
How can one be true to the teachings of God’s Word and stay out of politics? We are ambassadors for Christ. We are to influence the culture for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. How can we rightfully complain about the upcoming persecution of Christians when we do nothing proactively to influence our society for Jesus Christ?
Anonymous said
What you mean to ask is ‘should fundamentalist Christians stay out of politics?’
The overwhelming majority of voting U.S. citizens are Christians. Just not Gary DeMar’s kind.
And what you really are advocating is establishing a Christian theocracy in place of the secular government we now enjoy.
Just talking a little truth.
kandace said
I said nothing about establishing a Christian theocracy. I am not so naive as to think that there will ever be a Christian theocracy on this earth until the 1000 year rule of Christ during the millenium.
What I said is that we need to participate in the decisions of government rather than to expect someone else to do it for us. The government has no business in the abortion indusry via Planned Parenthood. The entire social welfare network began under the FDR administration. The churches had abdicated their responsibility to care for the need members of society, thus government got involved and look what has been the result.
I grew up during the time when public prayer and Bible Reading was removed from the schools. I understand the situation because I felt funny being compelled to repeat the Lord’s Prayer every day. I never understood why any person should compel someone to pray anything specific since prayer is a private matter between an person and God. Bible Reading got out of hand because it was too long and too confining in that nobody felt the liberty to commune with God in their own fashion. Hence, something had to be done.
Now the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction in that the mere mention of Biblical truths is frowned upon especially when studying works of literature which draw upon these Biblical truths in their writings.
There are certain Biblical phrases which have become common parlance: Good Samaritan is but one example. We are raising generations of people who are Biblically illiterate. I agree that the teachings belong in the home but if the homes fail, the churches become lukewarm (as a rule), something must be done.
I have been praying for many years for another great awakening to save our country from certain ruin before we follow the direction of the Roman Empire, which decayed on the inside before it collapsed.
“America is a great nation because she is good. When she ceases to be good, she will cease to be great” – Alexis De Toqueville
Anonymous said
Take it easy, Kandace. I was addressing the question at the top of the page.
kandace said
Anonymous:
So was I. There is no way to advocate state sponsored… or church sponsored…. Christians are part of a family, not an organization. As family members in society, we have the right under the US Constitution, etc. to express our views. In fact, we have a duty to our founding fathers to express ourselves in the marketplace of ideas. They gave their lives and sacred honor so that we might be free to participate in the marketplace of ideas.
The problem is not the ideas but the environment around the ideas. I try to speak the truth in love. The medium of the Internet
can come across harshly because it is not possible to observe the facial expressions, etc. of the people discussing an issue.
The American society of democracy was a historical experiment to see if people of good will toward each other could get along in peace without imposing personal viewpoints upon anyone else.
The problem is not the churches telling government what to do. Christianity is not one church but a variety of people who have become members of the same family through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
The problem is when government wants to get involved where it does not belong – the business of telling individual churches, and church members what they can and cannot do – read Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists (the origin of the phrase “Separation of Church and State).
Anonymous said
The question is “should Christians stay out of politics?”.
What I meant to imply was that that is a misleading question. That’s all.
Never mind.
ADB said
We should most certainly be active politically, but we need to be careful that Christians don’t allow themselves to become merely another political bloc to be pandered to, or taken for granted by one party or another. Culture is changed from the bottom up, one life at a time, just as much as it is from the top down.
compassioninpolitics said
My short answer. It seems odd to me that Christian living should stop at the voting booth. As such, social and political activism are incredibly important to me. Alternatively, I think its best for both Christianity and the state that it the influence of the church should not be one of imposing views via the state power apparatus. After all, Jesus was about humility and mercy. I think particuarly when the state or other organizations overstep their bounds that we should speak truth to power, or as Tony Campolo is fond of saying criticizing “powers and principalities.” Actually I’ve made two posts about the Church and the State recently as Compassioninpolitics that gives a fuller explanation of my viewpoints on the issue.
Great discussion. Its one we really need to have as inviduals and as a faith community…