Thought for the day...

From Philip Yancy:

"... I remembered a remark by Lewis, who drew a distinction between communicating with a society that hears the gospel for the first time and one that has embraced and then largely rejected it. A person must court a virgin differently than a divorcée, said Lewis. One welcomes the charming words; the other needs a demonstration of love to overcome inbuilt skepticism.

I thought, too, how tempting it can be—and how distracting from our primary mission—to devote so many efforts to rehabilitating society at large, especially when these efforts demonize the opposition. (After all, neither Jesus nor Paul showed much concern about cleaning up the degenerate Roman Empire.) As history has proven, especially in times when church and state closely mingle, it is possible for the church to gain a nation and in the process lose the kingdom."

From Christianity Today, November 2005, Vol. 49, No. 11, Page 128.

It seems like the evangelical church needs to be defined as a political action group more than a religious organization. Some days I feel as though the church is more concerned with saving the culture than saving souls. There are some important issues, such as abortion, that must be addressed politically and such action does confront the present culture. The church is not equally politically active however regarding issues such as poverty, basic human rights of migrants and immigrants and the poor and fiscal responsibility. The Bible definitely addresses these issues and the church is responsible for addressing these issues: individually, as a church body, corporately through denominations and church collaborations and cooperatively through the political process.

This is not a new idea; there are many sociallly minded Christian writers, pastors, and churches. The sad side of this discussion is the lack of action and care and demonstable love of Christians, specifically evagelicals, seen in the general culture. For sure, there are specific instances, such as the response to Hurricane Katrina, which demonstrate the love and care of Christ to the culture but the issues must be addressed more consistently and even politically.

In general, the message observed by many people outside of the church is one of neglect and disdain; this isn't just some "left wing media bias." This is an honest impression and feeling of more than half of the world's population. We defend the rights of the unborn but fail to defend the rights of immigrants, migrants and the poor. We defend the definition of marriage while constantly redefining the global economy to fill the wallets of executives. This is not to imply that abortion and marriage are not important issues. This is to imply that there are many issues that the church does not address but the Bible explicitly commands us to take a firm stance and love, love the poor, the weak, the neglected, the helpless, the outcasts. We must learn to love people as Christ does, even to the point of laying down our lives, our wealth, our security, our freedoms, our "American dream".

Todd Agnew, "My Jesus":

Which Jesus do you follow?
Which Jesus do you serve?
If Ephesians says to imitate Christ,
Why do you look so much like the world?


-Posted by Brian, on his soapbox