Separation

"Because politics rests on an irreducible measure of coercion, it can never become a perfect realm of perfect love and justice" (Christopher Lasch).

Sometimes I have a hard time telling the difference between our American love of country and our love of Christ. There is a tendency among some to mix the two together, espousing a sort of civil religion that has a Jesus wrapped in red, white, and blue. There is this idea among many Christians that the state is the instrument of God to bring order and preserve justice, but does this belief mean that we must accept all that the state does as being the will of God? While we do honor Caesar, we do not worship him or call him lord!

Take the war in Iraq, for example. I know many who have been in favor of the war on the basis that we can force democracy onto another nation so that they might have religious freedom (and the Gospel could be spread there). For me, I have a hard time justifying death, devastation, and trauma in the name of advancing anything good...especially the Gospel! It isn't consistent at all with the message of the Kingdom preached and lived by Jesus.

Charles Spurgeon put it this way: "...the progress of the arms of a Christian nation is not the progress of Christianity, and that the spread of our empire, so far as being advantageous to the Gospel, I will hold, and this day proclaim, hath been hostile to it." In other words, we might convince ourselves that the spreading of democracy (by means of war) can open up possibilities for the Gospel to be preached, but the truth is that it will only lead to resentment and hatred among the conquered.

The way the kingdoms of this world advance is not the way the Kingdom of God advances!

When the church and government lie together, the off-spring is an insideous half-breed that corrupts the blood-line of true Christianity! I don't believe we should seek to advance the Gospel with an alliance with the state, because our obedience transcends any political power or allegiance. My spiritual ancestors, the Anabaptists, rejected any use of coercion in religion, and many of them still practice biblical non-resistance to this day. While Anabaptists do not believe that peace always resolves conflicts, they do not believe that violent conflict ever results in peace. They certainly believe that living as his in this world means that our values and actions must transcend the values and actions of the world. We live differently.

While some would seek after political power because they seek influence and change, I believe we should be seeking to love and serve our neighbor (and love and serve the nations)so that Christ can bring about the change he desires. "The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world" (2 Corinthians 10:4).