Feb 24 2008
The Reign of God and Politics
From Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America (click the link to look at Amazon.com and find out more about the book - if you buy it I get a slice of commission! Hint hint.):
The calling to seek first the reign of God and God’s justice means orienting our public deeds away from imposing our moral will onto the social fabric and toward giving tangible experience of the reign of God that intrudes as an alternative to the public principles and loyalties. (p. 109)
Efforts like Focus on the Family to influence public policy would seem to be beyond the purview of Jesus’ mandate for us, his church. FOTF do a lot of wonderful things to support and encourage families, but preaching condemnation to secular America doesn’t seem to be doing much good - in fact, it works against the gospel as people associate “impositions” with all Christians resulting in doors closed to the gospel.
I think as individuals and as people we have the right and duty to declare what we would have of our government, within the framework of rights and responsibilities that the government is there to deal with - whether it stems from our religious beliefs or not. However, I am not sure to what degree we should be acting as organizations and lobby groups for certain political ends.
Our goals and aims should be different.
Something to think about.
