didyktile » Politics

Do not be ashamed

Daniel — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 16:32:55 +0000

n December 1st, 2010, there will be the opportunity for Christians across the UK to declare that they are not ashamed of Jesus. Often Christians are excluded from public debate or asked to leave religion at the doorstep. But Christianity, which grew up rejecting the Emperor-centric world of the Romans, unabashedly claims the right to speak to all of life.

Not Ashamed is a campaign to celebrate this and for individual Christians to declare that they are not ashamed of Jesus.

Jesus Christ is good news not just for individuals or for the church but also for our nation as a whole. He is the only true hope for our society.

– Not Ashamed leaflet

It is a good reminder that it is essential that we be able to speak about Jesus openly, because Jesus is the only hope for people all across the UK.

Protesting too much

Daniel — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:06:50 +0000

ome wise thoughts on what may underly some of the fervent eagerness to see Christian values defended by political action. This is not to say that political action is ruled out–but it can never be the focus of our hope for a transformed society.

Indeed, if there is any real evidence of the decline of Christianity in the West, the evidence resides precisely in the eagerness of so many professing Christians to employ the state to advance the Christian religion…. [It] resides not in the presence of other religions (including secularism) in our culture, but in the Judge Moores, the hand-wringing over “under God” in the pledge of allegiance, and the whining about the “war on Christmas.”

If professing Christians believe our religion is advanced by the power of the state rather than by the power of the Spirit, by coercion rather than by example and moral suasion, then perhaps Christianity is indeed in decline. If we can no longer say, with the apostle Paul, “the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly,” then perhaps Christianity is indeed in significant decline. If we believe we need Christian presidents, legislators, and judges in order for our faith to advance, then we ourselves no longer believe in Christianity, and it has declined.

Christianity does not rise or fall on the basis of governmental activity; it rises or falls on the basis of true ecclesiastical activity. What Christianity needs is competent ministers, not Christian judges, legislators, or executive officers.

– T. David Gordon, “The Decline of Christianity in the West?”

HT: Old Life Theological Society

As if only one issue

Daniel — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 22:42:59 +0000

omplaining about the prominence that the issue of slavery played in the debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, historian J. G. Randall wrote:

“With all the problems that might have been put before the people as proper matter for their consideration in choosing a senator–choice of government servants, immigration, the tariff, international policy, promotion of education, west ward extension of railroads, the opening of new lands for homesteads, protection against greedy exploitation of those lands … encouragement to settlers … improving the condition of factory workers, and alleviating those agrarian grievances that were to plague the coming decades–with such issues facing the country, those two candidates for the Senate talked as if there were only one issue.”

I shall leave the contemporary application as an exercise to the reader.

HT: Between Two Worlds