I wanted to revisit the Myth of a Christian Nation, as something I read recently correlates with something we talked about last night at our fellowship gathering. It also goes along the lines of a post by Arthur Sido at “the voice of one crying out in suburbia…” First a quote from the book, still chapter 1.
“The sword is part of our common curse, yet God uses it to keep law and order in the world. For this reason, followers of Jesus are to be obedient, as far as possible, to whatever government they find in power over them.”
He then goes on to quote Romans 13:1,3-4, and then gives a quote from John Howard Yoder:
“God is not said to create or…ordain the powers that be, but only to order them, to put them in order, sovereignly to tell them where they belong, what is their place….Likewise God does not take the responsibility for the existence of the rebellious ‘powers that be’ or for their shape or identity; they already are. What the text says is that God orders them, brings them in line, providentially and permissively lines them up with divine purpose”. (From John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, pg. 201-202).
Now, the purpose of this post is not to discuss the merits of the John Howard Yoder’s theology, as I really don’t know much about him. The question is in regards to our interactions with our government, and how active we should be in our government.
During our discussion last night we got onto a discussion about politics, as it relates to the death penalty. Now, from a purely worldly perspective I am not opposed to the death penalty. I think if the world decides they want to institute that form of punishment I don’t think it is morally or ethically wrong. My point was that, as a Christian, I don’t feel that I can involve myself in the politics of that, because my walk with God in His kingdom takes me above those arguments, and puts me in a position where I can not condemn another person to death, nor necessarily condone it. I see an application here for the “let the dead bury their own dead” principle. I would rather let the world govern themselves, without my input, as my input will have little effect in reality anyway, without staging a huge political battle. I am just not interested in trying to politically win others over with my beliefs. The question was then asked whether I was content to live by the rules made by others, with no say-so in the rules, and my response was “yes”.
Now, this is quite a departure for me. In my former life I was as conservative as they come. Although I didn’t watch a lot of news at that time, if i did it was Fox, and I loved the likes of Shawn Hannity, and other conservative voices. To call myself an activist would have been an overstatement, but I was a “conservative of conservatives”. Now, although my own personal beliefs line up more with the Republican party than the Democratic, and I still follow national politics with interest, I no longer have the desire to involve myself in these things. Do I vote? Yes. Although for a time I quit. I just don’t put much importance in worldly issues, as I feel that the Spirit has drawn me away from that, and towards Christ.
Having said all this, I am curious how others feel about this topic? I can’t quote chapter and verse as to why I believe this way, and its really only been in the last week or so that I have felt this way. So, I can not claim to have truth on this topic. As such, again, I am interested in what everyone else thinks.
