Confused kingdoms

As if we needed another reason to wonder about the decline in the effectiveness of the Church; we have these comments from Howard Dean as quoted in WND:

He characterized the Republican Party as "a pretty monolithic party. They all behave the same. They all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian party."

Having abandoned the Truth of the Bible; mainstream churches are picking sides in the “which statist party is morally superior” war. Evangelical and conservative churches picking the Republicans and the liberal churches picking the Democrats. Hmmmm.

I wonder if this is an admission from Dean that the Christians in the Democratic party aren’t really Christian? [Christians in Name Only] Or is it that the evangelical churches have exchanged their spiritual mission to evangelize the world, with a temporal one to save it from it’s own depravity, whether it wants to be saved or not. I think Dean actually made a mistake here and spoke the truth.

Hey, I LOVE political activity by Christians; and believe that Churches need to be free to pontificate (irony anyone?) on whichever party or person they think will be the best for elected office. But to paraphrase the oft-spoken words of Chuck Missler: [Let’s not] get our kingdoms confused.

The work of the Church is to do the work of the Church. Not to get government (or anyone else for that matter), to do it for you. To often of late, the Church (both left and right: en toto) has been far to willing to hitch it’s wagons to the political party that will legislate the actions of people, in accordance with it’s own dictates. This advocacy is at best misplaced enthusiasm, and at worst, phariseeism and a false witness.

Christ says come as you are and I will save you and change you (In that order). The world’s pagan religions say; obey these rules to attain enlightenment or to please god. Unfortunately, the modern church sound tends to sound more and more like the pagans we’re supposed to witness to, instead of the God we witness for. Christianity is not a list of rules to be followed but a relationship with the one true God, who gave Himself to redeem mankind to Himself. Legislating faith is an oxymoron that falsely tells non-Christians that our God is not strong enough to change hearts, so the strong arm of the State is required.

Both membership in the genuine Church universal, and true faith, are gifts of God. It’s time we stopped acting otherwise.