Christians Need To Rise Up

I think it’s high time that Christians spoke more confidently about politics from a Christian perspective, because currently too many Christians are being co-opted by the cultural manipulations and tribal impulses of political parties on both the left and right, who are anti-Christian in their ethos, and corrosive in their influences. 

Some of them are even able to seduce by offering the sort of policies and calls to action that simulate the kind of things one might expect Christians to say, which is why it’s good to remember that darkness often masquerades as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). One of the most salutary lessons you can learn about what comes from most of our political parties is that anti-Christian beliefs often try to imitate goodness by counterfeiting it.

Therefore, Christians really shouldn’t keep maintaining a circumspect faith as they nervously dance around a political landscape that seeks to dominate the narrative on subjects over which Christ has given us authority. Too many believers approach political discourse with hesitation, as though their deepest commitments are liabilities rather than sources of truth, justice, clarity and courage. Christian belief is not something that must be cautiously justified before it can be proclaimed. The convictions Christians hold (or should hold) about truth, justice, human dignity, goodness, compassion, etc, should be confidently leading the way in politics, not taking a back seat to party-political ideology and virtue-signalling that’s anti-Christian at source, and hollow in substance.

I don’t, of course, mean that Christian political conviction should always be voiced like a minister delivering a sermon. But there’s no bigger political truth than this: At its best, Christian belief provides the most coherent moral framework for the social considerations of the dignity of every person, the reality of sin, the call to justice, the priority of the vulnerable, the hope of redemption, and the limits of earthly power.

It is time for Christians to recover their voice in a nation that so badly needs to hear it.

Odds, Ends and Stray Musings: God's Nearness

 

Some people say they have an absence of evidence for God’s existence or that He has remained hidden from them. The problem is, if God knows us and cares about us even more than we know and care about ourselves (as per Acts 17:27-28 - 'In Him we live and move and have our being), then He cannot really be absent or hidden. It must be the case that something in the individual human state - whether distraction, woundedness, pride, fear, myopia, or simply not being ready yet – prevents the individual from recognising Him, as He is already as near as we need Him to be (especially given verses like 2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 4:18 and John 1:10–11).