A Christian Nation

C.S. Lewis describes what he believes a truly Christian society would look like. It could be a good corrective given today’s polarized political environment.  Make sure you read to the end…

All the same, the New Testament, without going into details gives us a pretty clear hint of what a fully Christian society would be like. Perhaps it gives us more than we can take. It tells us that there are to be no passengers of parasites: if man does not work, he ought not to eat. Every one is to work with his own hands, and what is more, every one’s work is to produce something good: there will be no manufacture of silly luxuries and then of sillier advertisements to persuade us to buy them. And there is to be no ‘swank’ or ‘side’, no putting on airs. To that extent a Christian society would be what we now call Leftist. On the other hand, it is always insisting on obedience-properly appointed magistrates, from children to parents, and (I am afraid this is going to be very unpopular) from v to husbands. Thirdly, it is going to be a cheerful society: full of singing and rejoicing, and regarding worry or anxiety as wrong. Courtesy is one of the Christian virtues; and the New Testament hates what it calls ‘busybodies.’

If there were such a society in existence and you or I visited it, I think we should come away with a curious impression.  We should feel that its economic life was very socialistic and, in that sense, ‘advanced’, but that its family life and its code of manners were rather old fashioned-perhaps even ceremonious and aristocratic.  Each of us would like some bits of it, but I am afraid very few of us would like the whole thing.  That is just what one would expect if Christianity is the total plan for the human machine.  We have all departed from that total plan in different ways, and each of us wants to make out that his own modification of the original plan is the plan itself.  You will find this again and again about anything that is really Christian: every on is attracted by bits of it and wants to pick out those bits and leave the rest.  That is why we do not get much further: and that is why people who are fighting for quite opposite things can both say they are fighting for Christianity.

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Political discourse of empty posturing, extreme slogans, and, above all, entertainment.

I was gonna post this directly on facebook, but my parents are on facebook and might disown me for denouncing their favorite pundits.  Hopefully they don’t link through to my blog…  Although the tenor of this post is a little too irenic for me, Mr Trueman gives a pretty good assessment of the current status of political debate.  Talk amongst yourselves…

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Sunday May 16, 2010: The Resurrection and Politics

Sermon Notes from Sunday May 16

Today’s topic: The Resurrection and Politics.

Last week we talked about The Resurrection and Sex.  We decided to talk about something a little less controversial this week, politics.  We want to ask the question, what does Jesus and His resurrection have to say about politics?

First, let’s look at several ways we treat the subject of religion and politics

Americans have mixed sentiments on religion and politics

More than half of all Americans state that they would not vote for an atheist for President

%60 of Americans want their President to have some kind of faith

Less than half of all Americans want their President’s faith to influence their policy making

That means we want our politicians to have some faith, but we don’t want it to matter!  In other words, we have a strange mix in American of wanting religion to have some effect on our elected officials without it directly effecting their policy.

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Post Election Report

     The election is finally over, and I feel the need as a pastor to address where our hearts should be right now.  Having only lived through six elections, I don’t know how qualified I am to comment on this one.  My first observation is that the country is unbelievably divided on issues of politics.  I say unbelievably, not just because it doesn’t seem like either side is willing to give concessions to the other, but because I think our division runs much deeper than that.  What I mean is, that over at least the past eight years, there has been an increasing hostility between the parties.  So much so, that people not far into the extreme in both parties actually and openly calling their political opponents evil.  For the past eight years, George W. Bush has been equated to Hitler, Voldemort, and even the Anti-Christ!  And I suspect that the next four to eight years will see the same for President-Elect Obama.  Already, he has been dubbed a communist, a traitor, and a terrorist.  So, suffice it to say, it is very difficult to address Christians in this church and our country in the wake of this election, but I’ll try.
     I’m evaluating the present election based on something I recently heard in a talk John Piper said “Don’t waste your compassion. I have a burden about the conflict between liberal compassion and conservative compassion. And the liberal compassion for the poor seems to be blind to the butcher of the weakest people, namely the unborn. On the other hand, the conservative compassion… is a blindness towards real living pain in the world among the downtrodden, the poor and the oppressed. while advocating for the weakest… We need church leaders to rise up and embody the full biblical compassion in the body of Christ… Don’t waste your compassion by splitting it in half.” My concern is that we as Christians in a democratic society don’t waste their compassion by focusing on one group of the downtrodden, the poor and oppressed or the defenseless unborn, because of their political affiliations. For the past eight years, I have been hopeful for the one group and have deeply grieved over the lack of compassion for the poor. It seems that now I have new found hope and new found grief. I hope that as Christians, no matter what party we’re aligned with, we can repent for our lack of compassion, whether for the unborn or the downtrodden, and work together for both.

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