An Apology to Our Government as a Christian

As Christians we can only appropriately approach our views of government two ways. We should follow the Romans 13 way:

1Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.2Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment... (ESV)

And accept how those enact laws, aka Health Care, while in power, or we need to stay completely out of it. Unfortunately we have done neither. I am reminded of recent events, such as those Christians who were spreading the false rumors that Obama was/is against The National Day of Prayer, or who completely criticize, usually in harsh/unchristian language, the government because the Party they support is not in power. This is completely irresponsible for us as Christians. I am calling for all Christians to apologize to our Government for how we have acted especially in the past few months/years. Not only should we apologize but we need to pledge to act better from here on out. How are we to be set apart if we act no better than anyone else or worse (in my opinion) when it comes to politics. I personally vote we become more apolitical, but none the less we need to act more mature. If you agree I suggest you post on your social media accounts, aka Facebook, twitter, etc, an apology to our Government and pledge to act more maturely in the future. Remember Obama says he is a Christian and I cannot in good faith (to God) say he is not: Judge not, that you be not judged (Matt 7:1 ESV).

A Metaphor to Think About

So there is a bus that is in disrepair but runs and is the needed and only source of transportation for 100 people each day. Unfortunately this 100 seat bus is in such a condition that only 5 people can ride every day. Now people have been calling for the bus to be repaired for years but the bus is owned by two companies, A and B, who disagree with one another and this has hindered any repairs to be made. Now company A has decided repairs must be made. They fight tooth and nail to get repairs done. Their repairs will allow 68 people to ride the bus, but these repairs could increase the cost to 6 of the people who ride the bus, 4 of the 6 are loyal to company B. Also some of the changes to the bus would be disagreeable to 20 of 68 people, 17 of which are loyal company B. Should these companies wait until they can agree, meaning it could be several more years before any repairs are made to the bus and in fact the bus could become even more in disrepair between then and now or should the company A push through these repairs?

Please comment with your reason for siding with the company A or B.

Church Music by DC*B, my review

After releasing a more simple yet power album (Remedy), The David Crowder*Band has gone back to reinventing their sound and the sound of church music. The album has 17 tracks and you would be hard-pressed to find one that should be cut. The album is meant to be played straight through in one listen and my recommended listening, no seriously if you can sit down and listen to the whole album at once and in order, especially for your first listen. The songs flow one into another for 72,3 minutes of pure rock, dance, and worship. The album opens with Phos Hilaron an ancient Christian hymn dating to the fourth century. The music progresses from there picking up more and more of a dance beat until the two covers, All Around Me (by Flyleaf) and How He Loves (by Mark McMilan) slow the pace (a needed break), however the album picks right back up until the dance beat comes front in center on Church Music - Dance [!]. The album then moves back towards the rock/eletronic style you may be use to from the DC*B. Songs to pay particular attention to: Eastern Hymn; The Veil; Shadows; Oh, Happiness; Phos Hilaron; How He Loves. 5 out of 5, currently fighting A Collision for my favorite DC*B album. Please add your thoughts in the comments section.

America and Christians Part Three: Politics

Disclaimer: This are only my opinions, presented to generate discussion on the issue. It is completely fine if you disagree. I respect the fact you may have another opinion and ask you respect mine. Comment on any part of this, whether you agree or disagree. Again this is presented to generate discussion.

Originally this post was going to mainly deal with if Christians should become politicians however after having a brief talk with Chris Boggus and him being interested in Christians involvement in voting and the political processes. So I will address both issues, being a politician and participating in the political process.

First should a Christian be a politician? No, because the responsibilities of being a politician lie outside your roles as a Christian. This argument is in very similar to the one in part one of this series. As a politician you are responsible to your constituents, which in a sense makes them your master. Say you get elected and your constituents decide they are pro-abortion but you are not. You can go against their wishes and anger them or you can compromise on your own position and vote according to their wishes. While the first view is completely viable it will kill your chance for reelection. So many politicians compromise on their position to appease their constituents in hopes of reelection and future gains of power. While the corporate world may not be much different I believe a political office only increases a person’s drive for more power and in any way possible. When you begin to look at this in a Christian perspective it goes completely against it. While I realize that a Christian can be in a political position, I greatly fear that compromise will over take them.

This issue is something I have thought long and hard about, especially since I considered becoming a politician while I was in High School and the early bits of college. However as I grew in my walk with God, I realized these two ideas where greatly contrasted. As I grew to love God more I realized that I would not make a great politician and would be troubled by going against my constituents wishes. If you are a Christian and you are considering politics please take a great bit of time to assure yourself you will not compromise your Christian beliefs to appease your constituents, which will most likely hurt your chances for reelection.

Now moving on to what should a Christian’s participation be in the political process. Should I vote, should I openly support candidates, should I lobby, etc. I think there is a fine line here that we have to walk. I do think we should vote, I not sure if we should endorse a particular candidate though, and limited lobbying could be okay. Voting, I believe we should vote because the people running for office do ultimately affect us and our daily lives. We do want to make sure we continue to have our rights that we need. Take for instance, doctors currently are a private practitioners, we do not want them to be force to perform abortions if they do not believe this is a correct practice. Voting can help us keep the rights we do already have. (I do want to mention though, we as “american” Christians take our rights for granted and abuse them. We allow them to make us docile, I feel Christians in countries that preaching and witnessing are illegal are more authentic due to their situation. This has led me to question my above stance on voting but has yet to change it.) Openly supporting candidates I think is a wrong move. People change (and politicians have been known to lie) and we do not want to be publicly endorsing someone that turns out to be against us. Instead we can openly support ideas that candidates endorse. Also I believe endorsing a candidate can lead to a bit of two master syndrome as well. Finally, lobbying, I think limited lobbying is okay. This goes back to endorsing ideas and not candidates. We can lobby to let it be known what stances on certain issues we hold and are likely to vote on. However this is fine line here because we should not fixate on one or two issue but all the issues. Currently gay rights and abortion or the two issues we continue to focus on while ignoring military, health care, treatment of the poor. Our problem seems to be we have decided that even if a candidate is all for helping the poor, providing health care, working to broker peace, but believes in gay rights versus a candidate who is against gay rights but believes first action is to strike back, ignores health care, and is only interested in giving tax breaks to the wealthy, then we tend to vote for the latter candidate. Is this right for us? I think not, we should be informed and make informed decisions based on the candidates entire resume versus two issues. Personally, with the trends in both parties, I currently support half the Republicans agenda and half of the Democrats agenda.

I think now I should discuss whether or not a certain party should be supported over the other. I believe not. We should support the candidates that promote the most correct stances on the issues, whether Republican or Democrat. I do not think it is our place to choose a side, for I choose to be a Christian not Republican or a Democrat.

Please comment with your opinion. See next week's part the Bible.

America and Christians Part Two: Military

Disclaimer: This are only my opinions, presented to generate discussion on the issue. It is completely fine if you disagree. I respect the fact you may have another opinion and ask you respect mine. Comment on any part of this, whether you agree or disagree. Again this is presented to generate discussion.

Should a Christian be apart of the military? Some would say yes and use Old Testament examples of how military force was and is necessary and therefore a Christian can be in the military. But is this view congruent with the whole of the Bible?

The Old Testament is full of war and God commanding war, so is it alright for us as Americans to participate in the military. I think we have a better standard to look at than the Old Testament and that would be (the stock answer of) Jesus. Jesus seems to turn around the view of war. If your enemy strikes you on your right cheek then turn and give him your left (Matt 5:39). Also the earliest Christians were antiwar and pacifists. It is not until Constantine really that this began to change. Now that the emperor is a Christian and part of his job is to protect the empire he and theologians had to needed to did make war okay. If you notice, there is a connection between patriotism and military force being justified. Unfortunately 11 September 2009 seems to have affected our beliefs and engrained in our beliefs that military response is right and responsible. Again going back to Jesus, they struck our right cheek so should we not offer them our right? (I am not sure how that would work, I do not believe we should provoke them into attacking again.) America as a nation obviously had to respond but to see evangelicals to have also responded in such a way is disheartening to me. We should have been seeking a peaceful way to have this taken care of (this does not mean for Afghanistan to just kill the Taliban). We should be pushing for world peace (though it is not likely to occur). The just war theory, while endorsed by the Catholic church, U.S., and more, it is not a correct theory according to Jesus. The crusades were wrong¹ and together we (Christians) should apologize as a whole for them. Most of the crusades were failures and only strengthened the hate between Christians and Muslims. We should be working to repair the relations, this would then increase our chances in the evangelization process. If they hate us why would they listen (especially if we continue to blame them, which we are finally lessening) but if we can build a dialogue relationship with them, it would create opportunities for us to witness to them.

So getting back to the main topic, should we as Christians be in the military, no. We should be attempting to make peace and be willing to be martyrs for the cause of Christ. It is our job to love and respect (love your enemies [Matt 5:44; Luke 6:27,35]). If that endangers our lives then we must trust that God has an ultimate plan. Take for instance Jim Elliot and Nate Saint. They were both killed attempting to witness to the Huaorani tribe. However in the long run many of the tribe have become Christians including two members that were in the party that killed Jim Elliot and Nate Saint. I am not promoting a martyr complex for we are to try to attempt to broker peace without violence. The military does not fall into line with this idea. Sorry Augustine but the only Just War is no war according to Jesus. Does this mean we should not support the troops, no. We should not support the military or the wars. People, yes; actions, no. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword (Matt 26:52). Does the sound like a promising statement?

1. See Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller for an interesting take on this.

Come back next Wednesday for the next part Politics.

America and Christians Part One: Christian Nation?

Disclaimer: This are only my opinions, presented to generate discussion on the issue. It is completely fine if you disagree. I respect the fact you may have another opinion and ask you respect mine. Comment on any part of this, whether you agree or disagree. Again this is presented to generate discussion.

In southern circles, at the least, you hear how America is a Christian nation. This country was founded on Judeo-Christian values they say and this fact alone makes us a Christian nation. I would like to explore this idea, first was it ever and second should Christians want to claim this?

First was this country ever a Christian nation? I believe the answer to be no. If you read about the founding fathers (of America) you find many of them were not Christians, they may have known Christian values but did not practice them. Benjamin Franklin was not a Christian even though he loved to go hear George Whitfield speak. Thomas Jefferson practically invented the Unitarian church (basically a hodgepodge of whatever religion you like). So at best you can call the founding fathers Deists (belief that there is a god). But what about after that? Well, if the constitution is not strictly a Christian constitution that makes it hard for the nation to be consider a Christian nation without changing the constitution. Also America is setup as a majority rule nation with allowances and understandings for minority groups. What happens if an influx of other religions occurs and one of them takes the majority? (Please note this is a very brief and probably unsatisfying look at this part, however many books and articles have been written on the subject and I do not pretend to know enough.¹)

^{Now more importantly, should Christians want to claim America as a Christian nation. I believe not. Why you might say should we not want to claim America as a Christian nation. There are several reasons and I will attempt to touch on them (some in this blog and then “larger” subjects in the rest of this series). One, as a Christian we can only serve one master (Matt 6:24), if we choose to claim America are we not really making America our master. Also if we take a look at our Old Testament, we find that being a nation with a leader did not work out well for Israel. While Judges was a bad time for the Israelites, God provided for them, once they asked for a King, they were quickly separated (after three kings the nation splits) and then five-sixths of the nation’s tribes were lost by conquer. While America does not have a king, we do have a central government that in a sense has the same power as a king. If we look to them are we not like Israel demanding to be like everyone else. I realize the nation of America could not function without our government, this is no reason for us as Christians to embrace it as our own, though. This leads into the next point of America being a capitalist nation. If you can find me a passage that clearly shows Jesus teaching this idea then you are better than me or deluding yourself. While communism does not work as a government form, it is the type of idea Jesus teaches in the New Testament. I honestly like communism on paper, but then I remember we live in a world with non-perfect people who corrupt the system. So then should Christians move away and start their own communities where they do live communally. I do not have answer, because we are to be a city shining on a hill (Matt 5:14) but also to be in the world (but not of it) (loosely John 17:16). America is hyped up on buy this, get this house, drive this car, dress in these clothes, etc. This is not what Jesus teaches us, while he does teach to make sure we are taken care of, we do not need all the cool new gadgets.}

Capitalism is only one major problem, as noted above what would happen if Muslims became the majority group in America? Would this become a Muslim nation? They like wise could point to many traits in the constitution that are similar to their belief system and could make the same claims we do, except that the founding fathers were muslim (though as I previously pointed a group of them (if not most) were not Christians). How many laws have been passed that are counter to Christian beliefs? America is founded on the idea that majority rules but also cannot discriminate against the minority. So for instance prayer in school, we cannot (and should not) have public prayer in school (private prayer, most definitely). How would you determine who gives the public prayer in school, majority faith (in school, city, county, state, country). Not looking good is it. Or I could point to Roe vs. Wade, this is currently a legally sound judgment according to our constitution, the only way it will change is a law being passed defining when life begins. (On a side note in the Christian ethics issue mentioned earlier, end-noted, there is an interesting article on ensoulment vs life.) Still liking “your” nation and want to claim it as Christian. Theocracy does not work, our kingdom is in Heaven not on Earth. While we should want a nation full of Christians, we should not desire a Christian nation. There are other implications to this that I will discuss more fully in later parts of this blog.

{Part Two is: Military, Part Three is: Politics, Part Four is: Bible, and Part Five is: Schools. (Notice I have come up with a fifth part and watch for more to come, and comment on topics you would like to be written.)}

1. see Christian Ethics Today. Vol 15 no 3 iss 75. Fall 2009. For further research in this area. Also you may consider Gregory Boyd’s book Myth of a Christian Nation, I have yet to read it so I cannot fully comment on its take.