A few more questions concerning Christianity and politics:
- What are your views on the Kingdom of God? (In three sentences or less. Haha.) Seriously, I think this issue has a significant impact on what you think about Christians' role in politics. How does God rule here and now?
- How does our responsibility to govern, as you see it, play out in everyday life? Do you see Christian participation in government as an individual responsibility or the responsibility of the church as a body of believers? Are we to vote? Try to impact our world by reaching out to people we know one at a time? Form political action committees? March? Why?
Well, I can’t keep to three sentences, but I’ll try to be brief. (Btw, sorry if I’ve driven off other responders).
Your first set of questions:
What are your views on the Kingdom of God?...How does God rule here and now?
My answer:
The Kingdom of God is the purpose of Jesus’ ministry, and is established through His incarnation and resurrection. The Kingdom of God includes the whole of life, including political life. God directly rules in the here and now by Christians practicing their faith. Since we live in a fallen world, there are limits to establishing the Kingdom within history. But ideas like constitutional, or covenantal, government are the result of the establishment of the Kingdom within history.
Because 85% and more of modern Americans call themselves Christians, we obviously live in a society ruled by Christians. If this does not actually seem to be the case, this is because American Christians are no longer serious about what they believe.
Your second set of questions:
How does our responsibility to govern, as you see it, play out in everyday life? Do you see Christian participation in government as an individual responsibility or the responsibility of the church as a body of believers? Are we to vote? Try to impact our world by reaching out to people we know one at a time? Form political action committees? March? Why?
My answer:
These are questions of strategy. If we want a political revolution, then the first step is to recognize that this revolution must first be created among Christians themselves. The actual politics comes later, when the politicians are forced to deal with a new spiritual reality.
For example, one priority for Christians should be to create systems of private legal arbitration in competition with the state. Under pagan Rome, the church created just such a legal system for its members, acting as a spiritual empire within the pagan Roman empire. Because we live in an era of religious freedom, this means that there will be competing systems of private legal arbitration, reflecting this or that theology. The more competition the better. What matters, strategically, is shrinking the power of government to govern Christians according to pagan moral norms. Christians must again learn to govern themselves apart from the state.
The most important strategic question that Christians must answer is this: what is religious freedom? Does religious freedom, as defined by the pagan Left, make religious belief a completely private matter (at least for Christians), while American society is to be governed by pagan norms? Or is religious freedom the means by which, to fullest extent possible, people are to be free to govern themselves according to their religious beliefs? If the latter, this means (among other things) the abolition of the public school and the radical shrinking of the power of the state.
Over the past century, American Christians have deliberately chosen the pagan definition of religious freedom. Their choice pretty much explains the spiritual decadence of our time.