Wednesday, June 8th, 2005
New Political Position
I've just read something that fits so well with my political position:
The ideology of the Left believes big government and social reform will solve social ills, while the Right believes big business and economic growth will do it. The Left expects a citizen to be held legally accountable for the use of his wealth, but totally autonomous in other areas, such as sexual morality. The right expects a citizen to be held legally accountable in areas of personal morality, but totally autonomous in the use of wealth. The North American "idol"--radical individualism--lies beneath both idealogies. A Christian sees either "solution" as fundamentally humanistic and simplistic.
The causes of our worsening social problems are far more complex than either the secularists of the Right or Left understand. We wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with powers and principalities! We have seen there is great social injustice-- racial prejudice, greed, avarice-- by those with the greatest wealth in the country (and sadly, within the evangelical church itself). At the same time, there is a general breadown of order-- of the family and the morals of the nation. There is more premarital sex (and thus there are more unwed mothers), more divorce, child neglect and abuse, more crime. Neither a simple redistribution of wealth nor simple economic growth and prosperity can mend broken familes; nor can they turn low-skilled mothers into engineers or technicians.
Only the ministry of the church of Jesus Christ, and the millions of "mini-churches" (Christian homes) through the country can attack the roots of social problems. Only the church can minister to the whole person. Only the gospel understands that sin has ruined us both inidividually and socially. We cannot be viewed inidividualistically (as the capitalists do) or collectivistically (as the Communists do) but as related to God. Only Christians, armed with the Word and Spirit, planning and working to spread the kingdom and righteousness of Christ, can transform a nation as well as a neighborhood as well as a broken heart. That is what the rest of this book is about.
We're doing this book, Ministries of Mercy, for our next church effort, which we've entitled "Forty Days of Mercy."
I'm excited to see us reach out to the poor as a church-- to make a difference (which by the way, turns out to be more for our own health and spiritual neediness than for the health and physical neediness of the poor!)
~Jason
Tags:politics 0 likes ↑