Politically Correct

My pastor's response to the election inspired me. His reflections have helped me see how truly detached I am from our country’s political arena. I’ve taken for granted the blessings of our country’s heritage and political structure. I’m compelled to become more aware and get involved.

Like Ryan, I am also concerned about government getting bigger, especially in the areas of responsibility that should be performed by the Church. Historically, the Church has played the greatest role in meeting the needs of social welfare. Public education was founded by the Church and evolved into what we now know as universities, from which some of the oldest and most prestigious schools today were founded. Modern medicine is also rooted in the Church’s long history of ministering to the sick. Providing for the poor is not only a deeply rooted ministry of the Church, it is a biblical mandate. The very principles on which our nation was founded and from which our laws were inspired were overwhelmingly informed by Scripture. Much has changed. Public welfare, state funded education, and the proposed government health care are out of context and reflect the misplacement of responsibility. Those on welfare need a hand up, not a hand out. Public education has been ransacked by secular, anti-theistic academics on whose altar we willingly sacrifice our children. The biblical definition of family continues to erode as well, leaving for the government the responsibility of caring for forgotten, elderly parents and wayward, fatherless children, shattered remains of broken homes left to feed on the scraps of institutionalized philanthropy. Believing the state can provide such ministries is as nonsensical as believing a machine has feelings; the intentions are good but the vehicle is hollow and heartless.

I don’t have a strategy but I’m confident of the answer: the Church has to take back their responsibility from the state in order to set things right. Such a proposal is almost laughable; the perfect God-sized project. Impossible is what God does best and what most glorifies him. Politically, it is what is known as a grass roots movement, the same context from which revivals and revolutions have grown, the context that leaves the instigator unknown. Coincidence and mystery are the ways the world defines the inexplicable movement of God of which only believers are able to enjoy the awareness of being a part and the only ones able to see who is responsible. Such times are known to us as awakenings, times the Church woke up from their slumber and recognized again the source of their identity and author of their purpose. No political system produces results like a theocracy. No political leader has the power to invoke change like our all-powerful, unchanging God. Therefore, my involvement begins by declaring as the psalmist:

Psalm 82:1-8 God presides in the great assembly; he gives judgment among the “gods”: 2 “How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked? 3 Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. 4 Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. 5 “They know nothing, they understand nothing. They walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. 6 “I said, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.’ 7 But you will die like mere men; you will fall like every other ruler.” 8 Rise up, O God, judge the earth, for all the nations are your inheritance.

In God will I trust, by his power will I move, and on his platform will I stand.