Radically Real

An email list I blong to has thisreally interesting discussion on it about the sin in our nation being at least partly due to our immigration policies (It makes more sense than that sounds, but nonetheless, I am having struggles with the logic of some of it which leads me to a larger issue. Here are my thoughts:

Here is the area where I struggle. I think we as American Christians, or
Christian Americans, you pick it, have a slanted view of the world. We see
everything as democracy and so we seek to impact government. In scripture, there
was only one time when the people elected too have a leader that I can see (at
least among God's people). That was Saul and we all see how well that worked
out. The Kingdom of God is not a democracy, it is a monarchy. The only two
responses I find in scripture to government are prayer for and obedience to. We
were asked to pray for people in leadership in a time when leadership was a lot
more repressive than our current form. (okay I know that may be debatable and
it's not really where I am going.) In scripture, I see the government as being
an instrument of wrath and very little else. It is their job to defend the
nation, keep order and that's pretty much it. In my humble opinion, the
constitution also pretty much says the same thing. Charity, caring for the poor
and the sick and the weak and oppressed is the role, not of the government but
of the church.

In my opinion, when we seek to impact and change the government we are skipping
a step and it is the vital step that we, as the church, are called to. We are
blessed to live in a representative democracy, where we have the opportunity to
elect our leaders and so we seek to influence elections and change governments.
I feel we are not called so much to change the government as to change the
voters. We have been entrusted with the ministry of reconcilliation, turning the
hearts of the people to God. We are a nation that has turned from God. Consider
the nation of Israel in the Bible, when they were oppressed they turned to God
and he rescued them, then they got comfortable and forgot Him. It was pretty
much a cycle and it's pretty similar with us. We have an awesome call and an
amazing responsibility to work with Christ to change the hearts of the people.
Imagine if we left the government to do what it is called to do and we spent all
of our time devoted to reconciling people to God through Christ. What would we
get? A nation full of people, guided by Christ, praying over their voting
decisions, praying for the leaders that are elected and (who knows) even more
real Christians moving into public office and maybe even becoming a blessed
nation whose God is the Lord. The nice side effect of that would be growing
churches. The best way influence government is by turning hearts to Christ or at
least that's my passion. Let's unite behind Christ as we each work out our own
God-given passions, whatever they may be.

All creation groans...
Dave Weiss
New Creation Fellowship
Reading, PA