"Religious authorities can themselves be corrupted by proximity to political power (haven't we seen evidence of that!).
"The Psalmist . . . said, 'Put not thy trust in princes,' and there is much New Testament evidence to support a vision of faith and politics in which the church is truest to its core mission when it is the farthest from the entanglements of power. The Jesus of the Gospels resolutely refuses to use the means of this world -- either the clash of arms or the passions of politics -- to further his ends. The preponderance of lessons from the Gospels and from the rest of the New Testament suggest that earthly power is transitory and corrupting, and that the followers of Jesus should be more attentive to matters spiritual than political.
[A] central message of the Gospels is the duty of the Christian to transform, as best one can, reality through works of love. 'Being in the world and not of it remains our charge . . . the church is an eternal presence in a fallen, temporal world -- but we are to have influence. The Sermon on the Mount is about what we are to do -- but it does not come with a political handbook.'
Tomorrow I will share from another article, entitled, "Don't Weep for the Demise of American Christianity."
No comments:
Post a Comment