Christian "values" can't solve the nature of power
One of the first times I lost followers online was after President Obama gave a speech on religion in America (on June 28, 2007) in which he said that America was no longer a Christian nation, and that the idea of modeling the government after the Bible’s teachings was impossible. He pointed to contradictory instructions between the Old and New Testaments, but he also said that the teachings of Jesus were so radical that they would dissolve the State if you tried to apply them.
A follower of mine linked this speech in the comments section of my blog, assuming that I would jump at the chance to call Obama the “Antichrist” like everyone else at the time.
Instead, I agreed with him.
The only thing is, Obama did not go far enough. Christianity is not only incompatible with power, it exposes power as corrupt. It fundamentally includes a conspiracy theory about how the world is rotten to its core, doomed to be damned, governed by Satan, and everyone is going to Hell.1 It is not a political manifesto, but if it was, it would declare that every political system is evil to varying degrees, and that a Christian community must operate as independently as possible within those systems.
Christianity is not a set of values; it is not a moral code; it is not an ethics system. But it is also not Anarchy, which proposes that people are best served by a lack of government. It is a Kingdom, and it has its King. The twist, however, is that he is not interested in solving the world’s problems—at least not the kind governments deal with. He commands his followers like an intelligence network, transcending borders and classes, in preparation for a day when every government will crumble, and he will take over.
If you’re involved in politics and want to make a difference for good, guided by your conscience as a Christian, then God bless you. Many believers have stepped up into administrative roles and made a positive change. If not for them, who knows how much worse things would be today. But “Christian values” can never be built into the system. Sooner or later, the wolves will come. At that point, the Christian has no recourse to the tools of oppression used by the corrupt, nor even of self-defense when they attack. In both political and martial terms, we yield for evil. Our power is not in control, but in raising awareness.
Unless they repent and get saved by the grace of God.
Interesting... thanks!
For the last couple of days, I have been mulling over the fact that, as a nation (mine is New Zealand), it is not Christianity we need to return to, or Christian values, but Christ himself.
We need CHRIST... nothing more, nothing less.
Hardly a popular message for those engaged in the battle for freedom.
Coming at it from the other side -- the side of those seeking to create the government that we have now -- "the idea of modeling the government after the Bible’s teachings" was not on their minds. I'm no historian but those people were after money and power. Last I checked, those aims were not the Bible's teachings.
There is our actual history, and then there is our history as written by the victors in that fight for a strong central government. The latter is what is now taught. My introduction to this was during 11th grade, when my father advised me that what I was learning in school was not actual history. I believed him, but he didn't say any more about it. I would discover much later that he was coming to see the truth about our government himself, and that he was being forced into early retirement as an Air Force officer because of it.
So yes, what you said, and more. As for whether the people themselves represented a Christian nation, government aside, I don't know. There was the first great awakening in the earlier 18th century, which might have tilted things in a more positive direction for a time, but then the first industrial revolution followed, as if in response. With the 19th century we "gained" Darwinism & science run amok, Marx-Engels, and so much more, and look where that has gone today.
The work of the followers of Jesus continues.