As Christians, is our job to live godly lives among people and tell them about Jesus? Does it matter what we think about politics? Should we let the government be and get on with evangelism? I saw a bit of Parliament’s Question Time yesterday – it seemed pretty unimportant to me! A big debate about faster broadband in Tasmania – do I need to care about that?
I’ve come to realize that this life and the way we interact with our world, our culture and our government aren’t just meaningless ways to pass the time until heaven. Yes – we have the great privilege and responsibility to tell people about Jesus. But we also have a responsibility to speak truth and wisdom to our fallen world. We have the job of redeeming our culture (remember – the bodily resurrection of Jesus!). So the way we think about government and politics matters! And since we are blessed to live in a democratic society we should make the most of that.
We are a part of our society and as such, we need to love our society and act for their good – in bringing them to Christ and helping them see the best way to live in God’s world.
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Thomas Jefferson said that "It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no God. It neither picks my pocker not breaks my leg..."
One of the key ideas to come out of modernism was the notion of secularist tolerance - that faith was a personal choice and that the church and the state were to be well seperated. It has been thus odd that despite such a want for seperation, it seems like Christianity still plays a role within our political realm.
I think we need to go further and ask what role Chrisitianity plays in the modern political sphere. Our key political figureheads all claim to model Christianity, but are they indeed modelling such a faith or just filling in another box to win them votes? Do they care about Christianity? Do they want Jesus in politics at all?
In a modern age where an induction of leaders still requires them to swear on the Bible - I wonder where Jesus fits both in this present moment and in the future. Will we continue to go down the individualist road where faiths are a mere personal matter and don't belong anywhere near the State, or will we continue to have this middle ground that attempts to please everybody continuing?
I don't know what caring about politics looks like for our community, but we need to be praying for the issues that our leaders are facing and praying that God will work as he always does. I wish we could do something "better" than just praying, but I don't know what it looks like.
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