Subscribe to feedDarrell Bock has posted that an evangelical manifesto will be released on Wednesday. Initial details have already been covered through CNN.
The manifesto addresses the tendency of evangelicals to turn faith into a political agenda. Details are sketchy thus far, but the information provided by CNN sounds encouraging thus far. Christians have often had a tendency to over-politicize the faith, seeking to transform culture through laws rather than through the life-changing power of the gospel. This very issue was recently discussed at the Pyromaniacs blog.
Christians should raise a voice in government. We are citizens of a country run by representative democracy, a government which is of the people, by the people, and for the people. We should try to guide this country to operate in ways which are pleasing to God. But government is not gospel, and government is not ultimately the tool that God will use to change hearts. That is always done through individuals – individual witness, individual example, individual proclamation. This is how the gospel spread like wildfire in the book of Acts, it is the only way the gospel will spread today.
I look forward to hearing more about the manifesto and seeing whether it strikes a good, healthy, and much needed balance.
The role of the Christian in society is to live Christianity, not legislate it. The role of the church in society is to build the body of Christ, not buildings…
Chris:
Often I have cried out against the over-politicized efforts of those claiming to be Christian leaders. I’m afraid our bretheren in Colorado Springs seemed to have wandered too far down this path.
If the church spent half the engergy it expends on the socio-political front on evangelism, we would find a dramatic reduction in the actual need for political action. And, that is exactly what our Lord has commanded us to do. Why do some in the church focus their efforts on politics at the expense of evangelism? Yes, we are given spiritual gifts and we are to employ them for God’s glory and the edification of His church. However, every singler believer has been commissioned to evangelize regardless of their spiritual gifts — I’m not talking about lifestyle evangelism, either. We are all commissioned to ‘proclaim’ the gospel.
I do agree with the reported position of the “manifesto” saying our Christian bretheren have too much preoccupied themselves with political issues. However, I can’t guess at the motives behind this forthcoming “manifesto,” but do we really need such a thing? Don’t we already have the Word of God to guide us and tell us where and when to focus our attention? Don’t born-again believers have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them to serve as their council?
Should our attention be broadened politically to other social issues as the “manifesto” is reported to advocate? Not at the expense of evangelism, which is our primary commission by our Lord Himself. Is the Bible not effecatious? I say it is, and we simply need to do what it says and our political issues will become subordinated by our church-wide obedience to our God.