Posted on 12/18/2004 4:28:01 PM PST by Keyes2000mt
It seems like I've seen more headlines concerning Christian "persecution" this week than any other. Here's a sampling: The conservative Parents Television Council says that television is anti-religious. Here in Oklahoma, there's a lot of controversy over a Nativity being removed from a school play. The superintendent of an Ohio high school cut a Christian band from a school event. And, various corporations aren't supporting the traditional Christmas rhetoric in their sales promotions.
Of course, the response from all the conservative pundits and all the talking heads seems to be this: We need a campaign to stop them. The prevailing wisdom amongst the right-wing Christian community says that if we could just boycott enough corporations, re-call enough politicians and flex the collective muscle of evangelicals, then we can win.
I can't help but step back from this whole scene and ask the obvious question: Win what? With the majority of this readership coming from a politically conservative or libertarian standpoint and having traditional ideas about morality, I ask this question: What matters? I know we're all going to name God, family, friends and on down the list of priorities. But, let's think about this: If God is truly at the top of what matters, how is that reality fleshed out in the political scene? As fellow WND columnist Jerry Falwell re-ignites his "Moral Majority," it's important that we think about what the proper relationship between Christians and politics is.
I've been writing my column for over three years now, and I've been following politics for at least that long. Coming from such a perspective, the more I think about this relationship between a Christian and the political scene, the more I think that there's something wrong going on here – that the way the evangelical community flexes it muscle isn't really that Christ-like.
Looking at the Bible as a whole, it seems as if God is concerned about community. The way He communicated with people throughout the Old Testament was in addressing communities and leaving messages for humanity. In the New Testament, we see the majority of teaching addressed to communities. In Acts, we see a beautiful picture of Christian community fleshed out.
Traditionally, in America we value individualism – we have a capitalist market and a constitutional republic. And, that's probably as moral a system we could arrive at. However, this Western idea of individualism when grafted onto Christian spirituality creates a problem, because it immediately turns into a power struggle.
Self-interest is a very important part of capitalism, but it doesn't work when applied to Christian spirituality. Everyone immediately recognizes this, so we compartmentalize our lives. In politics, we realize that the selfless nature of Christ doesn't work, so we espouse a double standard: endorsing "Christian values" while leaving behind selflessness.
The Christian right wing is sincere, it appears, in its ideals of government and society, but the means by which to accomplish these things requires us to shed a Christ-life selflessness and join the power struggle. Politics is dirty, and even the morality candidates use scare tactics and empty rhetoric.
I received a lot of letters because of my latest column, and a lot of them supported this basic argument: If we don't do anything, then immorality will increase and Christianity may even be outlawed. That's a fine thing to be concerned about, for sure. However, let's assume for a moment that the "moral preservation" of government and cultural integrity is the chief end of man. What lasts? What will really change things? Laws will not. Strangely enough, we act as if legislation will change everything. Here's the truth: Our nation will change when the desires of its people change. A lot of people on the right buy into this idea of desires, but they speak of revival as if the end goal is its political influence.
That's a sick way of looking at revival – as a means to gain more power. At the end of the day, if conservatives run everything and America becomes the utopia Jerry Falwell hoped it would be, we still need to face up to our own mortality.
An update on the Mustang school district. Their voters voted down a bond issue the school needed and told the school board that their banning of the navitity scene in the 5th grade play was the reason.
LOL! (Frankly, I agree.)
Thanks. Perhaps I should read those other commentaries. If you have links, I'll do it.
Take care.
Yes, that's the problem with kids. They have to take it like the adults when they play in that arena. It's good for them as long as they can take it in perspective though.
That is a standard lie of Satan continually used against Christians: that Christianity itself is not out right new birth as real, literal new creations in Jesus Christ and God non-metaphorically living in us doing His will in all things, but that Christianity is merely an ideal model of behavior that the old, non-born again creature must adhere to, and if that ideal model is broken, the "Christian" endangers their soul before God by supposedly having dissappointed or made God angry. Satan offers up an endless supply of such ideal models, all of which of late have this in common: that the ideal model of behavior for the "best Christians" is such that the "best Christians" on the path of full pursuit of any model must necessarily damn his or her soul and forfeit all supposed "riches in Christ" gained through such self-effort in order to get involved in government or law enforcement or the military or the intelligence services in order to kill Christians at his leisure. Every time a pagan tells you something is wrong with your Christianity and that you are supposedly violating and invalidating what-it-means to be a Christian, God has done something through you for His glory and they have been convicted. The writer of that article is at best a free willer, deceived he is still the old creature earning his way to heaven by following a lie sold to him by satan that that earning is instantly jeopardized by participating in government in such a way as to justly rule and have a safe, prosperous, evangelical nation before God.
Proverbs 8:13-18 The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate. Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding; I have strength. By me kings reign, and princes decree justice. By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth. I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen
Touche' FRiend.
Wise beyond his years, this kid isn't. Just about every premise was deeply flawed.
Yeah, but what promise, huh? Sometimes the toughest challenge is to know how to NOT break their intellectual backs while convincing them they have the seeds of greatness.
After reading the original article and all responses, I think that you have stated the case most effectively.
The secularists' main battle plan is "divide and conquer".
And I know this because I am a Roman Catholic. What has happened to my church is now spreading to other churches of different faiths. "Gay Gene" in his golden robes is exalted and held up as an example of "diversity". OK, I guess it's "diversify and conquer". Anyhow, beware because it's the kids they're really after, and this kid/writer is speaking for more than just himself, IMHO.
Okay...I'll bite...go on.
welcome to FR ;)
Now to your point...
if one thought is wrong, they are all wrong!
Do whaaaaat?
You're gonna have to bring that point into the realm of sanity.
And that's a point well taken. On this forum, I shoot straight and sometimes miss wide. If I were talking to this kid, my words would be modified to encourage and instruct rather than crush. I didn't know the writer from Adam, and called it like I saw it. Now that I know it was a 16 year old, I still have to say that my thoughts stand up. If he is reading this, I would appologize for my frankness and brash delivery.
Your logic eludes your words...
Got a nibble. Check it out.
working.... working....
It's a slow night...don't kick him out until we've got a replacement.
Okey dokey.
You made some good points, particularly the fact that the kids are who they are after and this one speaks for more than himself. That is true, but if I had been writing at that age, I'd have probably made him look like a mental giant.
Come out from among them and touch not the unclean thing.
Be not unequally yolked together with unbelievers.
Love Not the world.
Walk not in the council of the ungodly nor sit in the seat of the scornful, nor stand in the way of the sinner.
Give not that which is holy unto dogs.
Cast not your pearls before swine.
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