In this great editorial, the title says it all: A nation of Christians is not a Christian Nation.
It's a distinction that the Republicans - especially those pandering to the religious segment of "the right" - regularly obscure, and it damages the cause of Christ when Christians try to hold on to it. I have no romantic notion that the United States of America is anything other than a political entity of this world. And this world is run by powers which are most hostile to God.
Monday, October 08, 2007
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4 comments:
Yeah, good post.
To me, an interesting question though, is whether Christians should try to make it a Christian nation.
If I trusted Christians more, I'd say yes. But historically, I think of places like Calvin's Geneva, and think that it hasn't gone so well.
They did some good, but conversion-by-force hasn't ever seemed to go well.
I reckon a "Christian Nation" would look much like the code of conduct at a seminary, perhaps like Liberty University, where posession or consumption of alcohol is an offense in the same tier as theft, cheating, and physical violence.
I'd settle for an agreement amongst Christians about what a Christian is - in beliefs as well as actions. If we were more successful at unity among our brothers, I'd be more optomistic about the prospects of success on an even more difficult playing field.
Yeah, I pretty much agree.
But then the question is how much Christians should try to influence government: there's a spectrum from "Thou shall not murder" to "thou shall not divorce" to "thou shall not drink, or chew, or go with girls that do." I don't think we want to retreat from essential moral positions, which in a sense are 'Christian,' but we also don't seem able to do a good job of micromanaging people's ethics and lives.
And we have great difficulty in deciding between essential moral positions and micromanaging.
The problem is that we have to decide things on the margin. After all, Jesus equates murder and anger. Should we therefore legislate against anger the same way as murder? Should we ban any insults, looking for the modern equivalent of "Raca!"
It's easy to line up the red and the violet on opposite sides of the moral rainbow, but it's harder to say precisely where one color ends and the next begins.
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