A friend challenged me with these questions about myself and what I believe, so I decided to think through them here. After all, I've found talking to someone else is the best way to clarify what you have jumbled up in your heart and mind. And, in other words, my brain works better than my mouth.
***What is your stance on a Christian's role in government?***
We live in a culture that wants to remain kids. Meaning, they want all of the privileges of freedom and liberty, just like children want all of the privileges of adults, but few of them are willing to shoulder the responsibilities of freedom and liberty. We need an army of men and women, not children, because those are the people mature enough to take responsibility for our culture, government, churches, and homes. God again and again calls us young men and women in His Word because that is what He desires us to be, that is what the world and Church need us to be, and that is what we must be. We must also be humble, knowing we are prone to be childish and that only the Lord can work in us the maturity to be adults in this world. We must not be naive, pleasure-loving, irresponsible children - God would never have us be so “humble” that we become these kind of people. We must show true humility and maturity by stooping to shoulder the great burden of responsibility in our government, church, and homes. God chose us out of this world to be salt and light, to preserve it. And how can we preserve it if we are either beating it down from the inside or sitting aside, ignoring it as it crumbles. Between those two options there is a balance of standing out, taking responsibility, and preserving our government and culture. And the only way to find that perfect balance is to look to the perfect God.
Therefore, a Christian's role in government is to stand up and fight for that balance, to point others to God who has made a perfect balance. It's true, we must not force our religion on others. We must proclaim Christ, but this earthly government was not given for us to enforce our religion.
Still we must also follow the pattern of the Founding Fathers who knew that to have a free and moral country we have to base our moral principles on the ones that Divine Providence has established. In essence, no free government can stand without holding on to morals-what is right and what is wrong-and the moment we begin removing God from our lives and government we begin losing our morals. And what is graver still is the thought that the only form of government that thrives on a lack of morals is a tyrannical one: an unjust, oppressive, arbitrary government. Does that sound anything like our government now?
So there is, again, the fine line, perfect balance, narrow way we as Christians must walk in. We must preserve our government; it is our duty as Christians to be salt, to preserve. But it is also our duty to be light; we must fight the darkness that is so prevalent, especially in our government. We are soldiers of Christ's Kingdom! We are not allowed to give up! Unlike the rest of the world, our duty before God requires us to influence, work, and learn about our government, so long as we are able. Christians have to care about government!
No comments:
Post a Comment