If Jesus were here today, living on earth with us, He would tell His followers to get out of politics.
I’m not backing down from this one. I think the Christian church makes a mistake when we try to use law and power to make a city, state or nation into Christian territory. That’s not the way we’re called to work, and it doesn’t match the example set for us.
When Jesus said, “Give to Caesar what’s Caesar’s, and to God what’s God’s,” I’m pretty sure the crowd knew which one was supposed to get the bigger part.
When He commanded us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the sick and the prisoners, He did not say, “You’ll need to set up a government committee to evaluate this faith-based initiative and fund it.”
When Jesus’ followers expected Him to become king, He told them in no uncertain terms that His kingship began in another place.
I think Christianizing politics is an easy out for believers. If I can send a representative to try and get laws passed that take care of my Christian duty, I can sit back and watch God’s will be done through those people. On the flip side of that, if the work doesn’t get done by the politicians, if my perfectly good Christian laws don’t get enacted, I can sit back and say, “Well, I tried.”
Americans like efficiencies of scale. But Jesus met people’s needs one by one.
When people look at the Church today, they often see a group that doesn’t matter, because we seem concerned with theoretical matters, laws, power, influence. And believers were never meant to work that way. We’re supposed to be humble. We’re supposed to be the ones people in need can turn to whether or not there’s a government program in place to solve their problem. Our example is supposed to say, “There is something different about these people.” And the wondering that example causes is supposed to draw people toward our way of life, toward the God who inspired it.
If the Christian church in America suddenly lost all influence over the course of the nation, what would we do? Would we fight to get that power back? Or would we go back to Christ’s way of living, finding the people who need help and making sure they have it?
