Church and Society/Government

I've been thinking about this sort of topic for a few days now. Following Pastor's sermon on Sunday and some posts on Sam's blog (specifically this post, but previous ones also), I've been contemplating on what the role of the Church is when it comes to the government, and also to the society as a whole.

Things are great in a nation when the people are overwhelmingly following God, but this is exceedingly rare. I think it happens far less than we like to imagine it does. Most of the time the people of God are only a remnant, fighting against the flow of the society. Even in the "Good Old Days" that most of us like to look back to, I don't think things were as rosy as we think they were. We were not a nation full of God-followers, but rather a nation that was raised in a conservative manner and taught to follow certain rules that looked like doing the right thing. But as Pastor said in his sermon, it is not about doing, it is about being.

But back in those days when the majority tried to look right, the Church got very comfortable. There was very little difference between the way we looked and the way society looked. (Hopefully there was some difference inside.) And when it came to government, most of the laws passed followed the beliefs of society and maintained the standard of "right living".

These days however vastly more parts of society are less concerned with looking "Godly" but would rather follow their own path. As they should - that is what being apart from God is all about. But that causes 2 problems for the Church. First, too many Christians never learned how to maintain the separation from the world that we are called to. So now whatever is acceptable to society is fine with us. Forget holiness, forget being set apart. As the world declines in morality, so do we.

The second problem is how we respond to the political changes. Is it the Church's mission to force the nation to follow the rules we as Christian's should live by? Absolutely not. We are so quick to deplore governments that try to enforce Sharia law (Islamic religious laws) on the populace, but are we not trying to do the same thing when we want to force laws that are designed around Christian beliefs?

Please don't get me wrong, I am not against Christians in the political process - as citizens in a democracy it is our duty to voice our opinions - and I am also not saying we throw our hands up and let the society decay around us.

I think our problem comes when we expect the law and the government to cause people to live right. That is not the case. Only a true cleansing by God can cause a person to change and want to live according to God's way. Remember, the call is to BE, and then let the doing follow. There is definitely a way in which we are supposed to live, but that must flow from inside. If the inside part is not there we cannot live right. Trying to get others to do without being is legalism. It is also impossible.

We do not impact society by laws, or by votes, or by any other worldly means; we do it by following the Great Commission - make disciples.