I talked with one of my followers the other day (LOL, I have two right now) and he encouraged me to actually put something new on my blog. So, I went home that night after Halo-ing it up with him and the guys and, of course, I was stoked about my mountain cookies. Mountain cookies are graham crackers(thank you mom) with peanut butter and chocolate frosting(thank you grandma) and I am in fact eating them again as I stay up late to write this tonight. That is where the picture came from. Anyways, I walked into my house, flipped the TV on with the remote and tossed it on the couch so I could have both hands free to work on the mountain cookies. I soon realized that the television was not tuned to either of the ESPN's or the Fox Sports channels that seem to burned into the pixels on our television. Instead, it was a rerun talk show that was being broadcast that caught my attention.
The host had just finished the show's introduction and he entered the commercial break with something to this effect: "When you come back, we'll determine whether your church is serving God, or serving the government." I was shocked that someone had found the manual. I was also shocked that someone would be so audacious as to claim the knowledge to solve this problem for everyone if we would only come back after the commercial break. I finished my mountain cookies, flipped to and through the ESPN's and the FSN's and curiously made my way back to the talk show.
At this point they had introduced a couple of guests and were engaged in discussion about their topic. I quickly realized though, that they were not talking about churches actually serving "God" or "the government", but rather were using these terms to mean "conservative political agenda" and "liberal political agenda". Somehow, despite having the deans of two seminaries on the show, the three of them had started to discuss politics and how "the liberals" had pulled the wool over "our/your" eyes with the recent jobs bill.
I promise this is not a political rant. The most appalling parts came next. One of the deans noted that the talk show host had made a great description of the Christian faith as being a "personal" acknowledgement of sins and our forgiveness from them or something like that. I don't remember the exact words there, but what's important is the theological jump that was made next. The guy proceeded to say that the "social gospel" was not the "true gospel", and that some churches were being deceived into thinking that these liberal social policies were good ones.
He had taken the love out of Christ's sacrifice and turned it into a purely mental and spiritual event that was necessary for salvation.
My mind quickly tired of this political talk and I don't want to continue with this recounting of it for you any longer. Rather, I would like to highlight some key issues I had with what was said that I thought were noteworthy:
1) The separation of church and state was abused in the worst way; these men were reducing churches to social hotspots where people came to be informed about social and political issues.
2)These Christian men were throwing half of America(which is part of God's creation) under the political bus.
3)The notion that Christianity is more about knowing than about doing, about living, was quietly assumed.
[I'm picking this up a whole missions trip (to the inner city of Milwaukee:) and almost an entire summer later, so some things might seem choppy, but I've still got some things to say, so here goes.]
When it comes down to it, the easiest way to abuse the separation of church and state is to hold a conversation based on a question which pits them against one another (i.e. Is your church serving God or the government?) Christ calls us to render to Ceasar what is Ceasar's. Paul also tells us "who are mature" to ask God for clarity on issues that we disagree upon. He goes further. In the same passage (Philippians 3) he calls those who were demanding that circumcision be a church mandate (a sociopolitical issue) "dogs" and says that their "destiny is destruction". Healthy separation of church and state (as it concerns the follower of Christ who is interested in clinging closer to Him than anything else) begins by forgoing all things for the sake of knowing Christ. And there is not even a promise of other things that comes in this one. Paul received suffering and further persecution. But he knew something that we seem to be unaware of at times today: "our citizenship is in heaven." The way to measure your own (you can measure your church's next) devotion to Jesus is by the things that you have given up to know Him and to have His righteousness and His power transferred to your account. Stop worrying about this lowly things. "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:18
It must be one of the most common and dangerous errors that a politically inclined believer can make today: to quickly discard half of America's population as morally unfit to have any say in the leadership of this country. There are a couple of ways to do this without reservation. You can either group "second things" with "first things" or you can forget to correctly analyze the situation. If the first things are the convictions (based in Scripture for the believer) then the second things are the policies or the methods. All to often we commit the very exclusive error of grouping our proposed policies with our convictions and fighting for them as if they were Biblical truths. Brennan Manning talks about this in his book The Ragamuffin Gospel:
"The deadening spirit of hypocrisy lives on in prelates and politicians who want to look good but not be good; it lives on in people who prefer to surrender control of their souls to rules rather than run the risk of living in union with Jesus...The way we are with each other is the truest test of our faith. How I treat a brother or sister from day to day, how I react to the sin-scarred wino on the street, how I respond to interruptions from people I dislike, how I deal with normal people in their normal confusion on a normal day may be a better indication of my reverence for life than the antiabortion sticker on the bumper of my car."
Standing on our convictions will lead us to action. Standing on our politics will imprison us to them. If you are going to be chained to something; if you are going to belong to someone or something, let it be Jesus! He's the only one who's going to bring about life in our churches and our cities and our nation anyways.
And the last fallacy that this conversation demonstrated disgust me the most. It relegates Christianity to a personal knowledge of the right way. Jesus said He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We are not Christians unless we know the Truth, we walk the Way, and live the Life. It is not fair for us to hide the truth in our hearts; we must share it with others. In 2 Corinthians 4:13 Paul tells us that it is with the same spirit of faith that we "believe and therefore speak." We must never get the idea that our Christianity is a "personal thing"; that it is meant for us to believe and be encouraged by. It transforms us. Rather He transforms us and brings us into glory with Himself. This is not something that we can keep inside. Nor is it something that is most accurately and prominently displayed with our votes. Rather, it is shown and known in our love for one another. As long as your political convictions come in somewhere behind your relationship with Jesus in the battle for your heart and life, it doesn't matter what they are. "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after the orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27
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