Posted on 06/06/2007 1:04:34 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback
We’ve still got a year and a half to go until the 2008 presidential election—and the mudslinging and dirty tricks have been going full blast for months: Publicity over John Edwards’ $400 haircuts. Gossip about Rudy Giuliani’s multiple marriages. Internet ads that make Hillary Clinton look demonic.
As someone who was once known for political dirty tricks, I know, better than most, how ugly politics can get. Does this mean Christians ought to avoid the cutthroat business of politics?
The answer: an emphatic “no”!
First, as I write in my new book, God & Government, Christians have the same civic duties as all citizens: to serve on juries, to pay taxes, to vote, to support candidates they consider the best qualified. We are also commanded to pray for and respect governing authorities.
Second, as citizens of the kingdom of God, Christians are to bring God’s standards of righteousness and justice to bear on the kingdoms of this world- what is sometimes called the cultural commission. Among other things, this means bringing transcendent moral values into public debate.
The popular notion that “you can’t legislate morality” is a myth. Morality is legislated every day from the vantage point of one value system being chosen over another. The question is not whether we will legislate morality, but whose morality gets legislated.
Laws establish, from the view of the state, the rightness or wrongness of human behavior. For example, statutes prohibiting drunk driving, or mandating seat belts, are designed to protect human life. They reflect the moral view that values the dignity and worth of human life.
All Christians are supposed to express their views to government officials, all the way from school boards to the White House. We all need to be engaged.
And third, some Christians are called themselves to political office. President Bush, an outspoken evangelical, has led the fight against the evils of abortion and is engaged in all human rights crusades. I’ve seen many members of Congress, moved by their Christian convictions, take the lead in some of the greatest human-rights campaigns of modern times.
For example, Congressmen Joe Pitts, Frank Wolf, and Chris Smith, along with Senator Sam Brownback, have made a virtual crusade against human rights abuses. In 1998, Congressman Wolf traveled to Tibet, where he posed as an ordinary tourist. Pretending to be ill, he eluded his tour guide and began speaking with Tibetans on the street to get the real story of Chinese repression.
Senator Brownback has traveled to war-torn areas all over the world, and here in the U.S., he’s spent a night in prison with prison inmates, saying he wanted to experience what they were experiencing.
It’s easy to become discouraged, as some Christians are today, when we don’t succeed politically. We need to remember the example of William Wilberforce, who spent decades fighting the British slave trade. His persistence paid off. Not only was the slave trade abolished, a great awakening swept across England.
Christians who are called into the political realm must do their best—no matter how many dirty tricks are played, no matter how much opposition. And don’t get discouraged. Remember that success is not the criteria: faithfulness is.
In the end, Christians have the assurance that even the most difficult political situations are in the hands of a sovereign God.
If anyone wants on or off my Chuck Colson/BreakPoint Ping List, please notify me here or by freepmail.
BreakPoint/Chuck Colson Ping!
If anyone wants on or off my Chuck Colson/BreakPoint Ping List, please notify me here or by freepmail.
Look what going into politics did for Mr. Colson.
Colson is stating the obvious here.
No matter what your point is, it's irrelevant. Colson was a non-Christian when he went into politics, and was done with politics when he bacame a Christian.
Thank you for your vital contribution.
You are welcome! At more length, is Colson getting paid by the word? Is there any issue at all being addressed? Washington, our first President was a Christian. Almost the entire first Congress and Senate were Chrsitians. What issue is there to address here? Christians have always been involved in American politics and always will be.
I think our current Congress proves that politics is not serving the people, but serving your own self interest. Anyone that does not put God first in their service is not fit to perform that duty.
Our President is trying to perform his duty, along with our troops, to God and Country. He has been ridiculed for his belief, openly lied about, and treated worse than our laws allow us to treat each other. All in the name of political oneupmanship.
However, if we give up our God given and Constitutional rights, we will be slaves under the control of despots.
I have started calling the Democrats the Devil’s Brigade. To me, and I once was one of them, they represent pure evil.
They care not for this Country. Only power, greed, money, and revenge seem to encourage their loyalty.
I know I will always do my part. God allowed us to live in a wonderful country founded on Christian values. IMHO, we were not good stewards of what was given to us and now we are paying the price. I will fight for the moral fiber of our country till the Lord takes me home.
I feel guilty that I have not done enough. God placed us in the greatest and most moral nation of this era and possibly in all of history. Is it our generations inaction and poor stewardship, our choices and complacency, that is allowing its fall? The blood of Americans bought our freedom to worship and the blood of Christ gave us salvation in which to worship, yet so many of us are too lazy to act and too greedy to give and too cowardly to speak, even from the comfort and safety that most of us enjoy.
Don’t be hard on yourself, it’s never too late. God is always on the thrown and He makes the decision whether the sun will rise or not. But, we can make a difference with persistance and involvement on every moral issue they throw our way. We just have to fight the good fight!
It’s about time Christians got their teeth into the institutions of American Government, and now the seminal work on the subject is back in print 100 years later, to provide the perspective that is so dreadfully lacking.
Kudos to Chuck Colson for writing this. He’s right, of course. But any Christian who, at this late date, needs to be talked into political involvement is probably too stupid to be a good candidate, let alone a good officeholder. I wonder whether he/she could even walk a precinct effectively.
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