June 13, 2013

Why Christians Should Probably Be Non-Partisan

Relativism is the only value a truth-less society can command as it is the only thing it is proficient in and can be trusted to produce consistently. Relativism due to its failure to actually be truth is therefore a lie by its very nature. "Relativism" and "tolerance" are the only "virtues" of the West (USA) today. We are now a country that produces worldly intelligent graduates from secular universities but they are essentially amoral. As these people gain control of the political, economic, scientific and in some cases the religious establishment...the American Dream will die completely. If the morality of a nation dies, so does the nation as it descends into immorality, depravity and eventual anarchy. We need only look at history to know this is true. We are now a society that glorifies thugs, drugs, porn, lies and deception. Our quest to find truth and illumination has ended in the darkness of a corrupt societal mind. The West, like Pontius Pilate does not believe that real (absolute) truth exists. We are therefore like Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea during the time of Christ that had Him crucified. Pilate had no power over Jesus that hadn't been given him from above, no more than the elected officials in this nation win elections and come to power without God allowing it.

We must never confuse patriotic loyalty with Christianity or loyalty to God. Christians are under the Lordship of Christ first and foremost. We need to be a nation under God our we will be a disparate people under tyranny, judgment or destruction. We are responsible for taking Christian principles into our interactions with the State and the community within the State but we should never allow the state to influence our relationship with God or the Bible. They are not synonymous. Leaders in the Church should never project an image to the congregation nor the observing public that there is a divided loyalty or a combined one. We serve God first and then submit to Caesar those things that are His (Mark 12) later. They are not the same. Once we mix them we lose credibility to the godly and to the ungodly. Our righteousness (therefore our right-ness) is in our relationship with God, not the statutes of men or the Government. Obey the authorities yes (Romans 13) but equating any loyalty with our loyalty to God is idolatry and is sin and is reprehensible behavior for a Christian.

We need to stop politicizing our religious views and our relationship with Christ because it pollutes the relationship with outside worldly influence. If your going to be political be political. If your going to be Christian be Christian but please...don't align God to political ideologies and political agendas. This immediately divides the Body along those lines and is foolishness. Use your Christian values to help you make judgments voting for the best candidate but don't hitch the Christian wagon to specific personalities and specific human ideas. When these people or their ideas fail (which they most likely will) those ideas along with Christ will be scoffed at not because of Biblical truth so much as they will scoffed at because of human failings...and that is just not fair to other Christians who have avoided that path. In a relativistic world like we live in today, ideas are only as popular as they are relative and important in people's lives. Christ never brought shame to Himself, it has only been the behavior and actions of His believers that have done this when they fail sinfully or go off chasing myths and foolishness of the world. When they do this they end up mixing their religion/relationship with other worldly ideologies like politics and created a shaming syncretistic blend. You cannot merge a political worldview or belief with the God of the Bible or you end up with something less than God. 

If you were going to align yourself with specific ideas and ideologies why would you want to adhere to anything less than Scripture and the Word of God? Why on earth would anyone want to appeal to the authority of another flawed human being or human government when the have the very word of Almighty God at their disposal? The very word that God provided for just such an occasion. Word that is is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work.

By all means exercise your given right to vote. Let your voice be heard in a federal republic or democracy but please stop painting God as a liberal or conservative. Stop painting Jesus as a tree-hugging hippie or a staunch humorless stick in the mud conservative. Our world has turned rabidly hyper-partisan and to align any ideology into your politics is ideological suicide and guarantees alienating at least half of the populace. This disunity destroys the idea of Biblical unity of the body. If you cannot win people to the Gospel because you've alienated them due to your politics, what good is being political to anyway? Your primary directive as a Christian is to win people to Christ...not to your favorite candidate.

Align yourself to the word of God and stay there, don't go chasing after broken, flawed and sinful men promising paradise on earth and only providing intrusive overbearing hell. We should've been able to learn this lesson by observing history and seeing how much damage was done when religions become state religions. When government and church were combined, governments and churches became mostly overbearing tyrants. The Catholic Church became a monstrosity until the Reformation because of its overbearing and unilateral power over people. A politicized church is a dangerous thing. It is zealous people following zealous misguided men, not zealous spiritual people zealous for God and following Him.

Let God be God and let men be men that realize that they need God not necessarily their Government official in God's place. In the end we must realize God is sovereign over officials of a "sovereign" nation anyway. Better to appeal to Him rather than men first.

Mark 12:14-17 ~ "And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone's opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” But, knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why put me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.”And they brought one. And he said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said to him, “Caesar's.” Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” And they marveled at him.

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