posted this on Facebook
There is a sentiment I hear often expressed that there is no place for 'politics' in the 'church.' I should like to agree, except in our current context, this would be like disarming one's army just as the invaders are sweeping cross the border.
The sentiment doesn't take into account the current situation, wherein the secularists, the globalists, the (let's just call them all) statists, etc, have decreed that EVERYTHING is political and have sought to make every last little sliver of human experience dance to the drums of government.
Thus, to state that no politics shall be in the 'church', on current terms of engagement, is to say that the 'church' will be silent. It will do nothing. It will be nothing. Which, by the by, is precisely what the statists want to happen. To accept their terms is not, then, to surrender the secular kingdom to the secularists, but to surrender the Gospel itself.
For the Gospel is, intrinsically, a threat to Statism. Statism holds and demands complete allegiance and sets itself up, practically speaking, if not more, as God. This viewpoint is grossly incompatible with the Gospel.
Statist regimes have always understood this, and so too the Body of Christ throughout time. This is why the Romans simply could not brook the idea of a loyal subject who did not also worship the Caesar as God. This is why the Communists have always attempted to stamp out religion, and Christianity in particular. These efforts have been spilt the blood of many a martyr. Ought their clergy have chided them as they went to their death--"leave to Caesar what is Caesar, keep your faith out of politics!"
Such a statement ignores a necessary pre-condition... politics must likewise be kept out of faith. But where politics has sought to be 100% all-encompassing, as it currently sits, then to leave to Caesar what is is his is to give him everything, as though he is God himself.
Just what makes something 'political,' anyway? Who defines it? The Statists have made it clear that it constitutes EVERYTHING. And the Christian that insists we keep our 'faith' out of 'politics' appears to be ready to concede this. It would be one thing if this critic said, with equal passion, both "Keep your faith out of politics!" AND "Keep your politics out of faith!" But it is always the former, and never the latter.
When God made man and made woman, and made them to join as one, was that 'political'? When he made them one in order that there may be 'godly offspring' (Malachi 2:15-16), was that 'political'? Now that the Statists have determined that marriage is a political matter, should the Christian never speak of Genesis 2 again? You do so in Canada and England at your peril. Now that the statists want to kill offpsring from conception until even after birth (and right into the nursing home), is this now verbotten by the faithful?
Surely you can have the Gospel without a proclamation of the dignity of life, right? Surely you can preach the Gospel with purity without reference to gender? And if the State makes it legal to have slaves, what possible relevance could the Gospel have to THAT? Keep all such political talk out of the pulpit! Let us have our Gospel, pure and undefiled, distilled to the tiny remaining speck left out of reach to the statists, kept secret and unspoken in our heart of hearts.
For that is what launched Christianity into the world like a tidal wave of epic proportions: the Gospel, never spoken, never acted upon, always approved by the State, always conforming to the dictates of the State, and never opposed by the martyrs, who, now that they see God face to face, now see the error of their belligerent refusal to 'submit to the authorities.'
No. I say that on the current terms of engagement, to keep 'politics' out of 'church' is to cease to be a Christian altogether, in any way that potentially matters or has consequences. Maybe if the current terms of engagement change, then my view would change. But I know who we're dealing with here, and what makes them tick. It is the Technocrats, and they have no intention whatsover to changing the terms of engagement.
And they'll never have to if Christians accept the premise that Everything is Political at the very same moment they say "keep politics out of the church."
Ajit Abraham
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