Conference yukon::christian_v7

    I say that we need to do both because we are the leven and need to
    witness by our works not just our words. Therefore, we must be
    in all areas of life.
    
    One would not argue that there should be no Christians in the film
    industry. Rather we would hope that they would provide a Christian
    'alternative' and yet would refuse and avoid projects that were
    sinful or evil. 
    
    I do see how this is increasinly difficult in this day and age to
    be in many lines of work and at a certain point it might not be
    possible to maintain a career in many areas. I don't know if this was
    what Bob George was saying or not. I don't think that we should 
    or could exclude most professions or service off hand. Righteous
    Jews such as Daniel worked for Godless leaders, but they had the
    discernment to know when they had to say "no" and put their life
    [or career] on the line. Sometimes their presence and courageous
    witness ended up turning the tide of events. 
    
    I think Christians are needed everywhere, but not primarily to
    promote societial change through things like laws. Rather, they
    are to witness to the way God wishes us to live both in word and
    deed. Christians rely too much on legislation and demonstrations and
    other means of influence that really does not give witness to God
    rather than on prayer and faith that the Lord brings vindication
    for unjustice and also maintaining the good and courageous witness
    which speaks Truth.
    
    Peace,
    
    Mary

    
    If this is what Mr. George believes in and then I agree with him.
    Christian are ambassadors, their citizenship is from heaven, their
    allegiance is to God and not to any nation on this Earth.  This how-
    ever does not give them license to disobey laws of any country they
    may be residing in unless the law conflicts with Gods law.
    
    I ask this, Is God trying to save this world?  By world I mean the
    political and religious systems and society in general.
    
    

I believe that it is still true that God punishes nations that behave wickedly.
I think this is clear not only from the Old Testament, but we see from both
Revelation and Jesus's comments on the end time that God still intends to
express his wrath against the wickedness of mankind by sending disasterous
punishments.  I don't know how frequent this is, but I do think that as such,
we should do everything in our power to restraint works of lawlessness in our
nations by passing laws that enforce certain aspects of Christian morality.

I do not think that we should legislate Christianity -- but there are certain
acts that are acts contrary to what I refer to as "natural law" that are wrong
for all people to commit, not just Christians.  Some of these acts I think
include pre-marital sex, adultery, abortion, acts falling under the condem-
nation of Romans 1:26-27, murder, euthanasia, and so forth.

By attempting to restrain these works of lawlessness (law here being God's
law, not man's law), we not only avoid the punishment that Revelation specifies
against mankind for its wickedness, but we also prevent more people from
going astray and increase their likelihood of being saved.  Because once you
permit more wicked people to do what they want, though we may never hope that
these wicked people might repent, what they do and what they are permitted to
do could encourage our innocent young people to commit these acts of wickedness
and put them farther and farther away from the Lord.

You see what has happened now in this country is that by "liberalizing" the
laws and permitting people to do what they were previously forbidden to do
because laws expressed Christian morality, is that after a generation we
totally lost any sense of wrong about these acts, so that these acts are now
culturally acceptable.  This threatens our own children and endangers the
salvation of many, because having no restraint of law and lacking love of God,
they become enslaved to sin, and being enslaved to sin, they are that much
farther from their own salvation, and, like leaven, corrupt everyone around
them as well.  Before abortion was legalized, few people approved of it and
the innocent slaughter of millions of children was checked.  But after it was
legalized, in that twenty years, what has become legal has become permissible,
and the demon has been released: now society's attitude towards abortion has
turned against the Christian stand, and a whole new generation loses their
awareness that there is something wrong with abortion, and then they begin to
turn against those who want to restrain this great wickedness.

The same goes with certain other behaviors that have more recently been
liberalized.  I remember even when I was a teenager (and that was in the 1980s),
the culture did not approve of these behaviors.  But as they are being legalized, 
fewer and fewer people see anything wrong with it, and in fact those who oppose 
it are oppressed -- even to the point of not being able to condemn it in public 
fora, because what once was condemned by law is now protected by law.

The legal liberalization of what were once recognized as sins by a great many
people has destroyed our culture and our nation.  We do not have to impose our
faith on other people, but we have a duty to protect our nation from wickedness
which will bring us both natural and supernatural destruction.  I need not
detail the bitter, rotten fruit which has been brought forth in these latter
days by legalizing wickedness. 

Eric

By the way, let me emphasize that we certainly are not called to spread the
gospel through the government, nor should we try to Christianize our nation
through legislation.  We cannot attain any converts this way.  It is our job
to do the spiritual work of evangelization and also of ministry to the needs of
the world.  (In fact, I think that if Christians did their job of feeding the
poor, clothing the naked, taking care of the orphans, healing the sick (both
naturally and supernaturally), and so forth, we would be in a lot better shape
than we are in, and the government would not have to do our job for us.) This
is not a matter of trying to force the nation to accept Christian morality:
rather, it is a matter of trying to protect our nation and culture from the
self-destruction that comes from an increase in wickedness.

This is most compelling in areas of human life.   Christians cannot stand by
and say, "Well, this is a free country, we can't impose our morality on other
people" while millions of children are slaughtered each year at the altar of
Venus, or while people are killed through euthanasia (whether in the past or
in the future).

The "legalizing wickedness" concept really rings a chord with me.

Before I really let the Lord into my life in a big way, I was a full-scale
Libertarian.  For years now (like 8 or 9 years), my personal name, both in
notes and in mail, has been "Trade Freedom for Security-Lose Both," which is a
condensation of the quote from Benjamin Franklin: "They that will exchange
essential liberty for temporary security are deserving of neither liberty nor
security."  I still believe that history has shown that no human beings can be
trusted with the right to use force to obtain anything from their fellow human
beings, and that a government whose only job is to INSIST that we not use force
on one another is the best we humans will be able to do.

But that still won't be good enough.  I used to think it might be.

The problem is that because libertarianism cannot use force in any situation
except to counter another use of force, it must by necessity tolerate any evil
which is not actively harming other people.  Things such as pornography,
prostitution, drugs, sexual misbehavior, even Satan worship are all voluntary
actions which have no *direct*, forceful effect on other people.  True
libertarianism must allow all of them.

The thought that has been rattling around in my brain for the last couple of
years is that *WE CANNOT SURVIVE* as a society, as a people, while allowing
evil to flourish among us.  We will be consumed from within, as we are being
now in the USA.

Yet we have shown, time and again, that if we give the government the power to
restrict evil, to outlaw actions which do not *directly* effect others, that
inevitably the government itself becomes evil, and begins to persecute the
good.  Once the precedent is set that the government can control private
behavior, we are helpless against it getting out of control.  We are seeing
this too in the USA, as the government begins its persecutions of Christians.

Quite literally, we are damned if we do, and damned if we don't.  Given our
human natures, we CAN'T create a government that will last.  Either we give the
government the power to control evil, and the government itself then becomes
evil, or we allow the people to become evil, or both.

The only answer (to any question, actually :-) is Christ.  In celebration of
that fact, I've changed my personal name slightly, this note is the first
correspondence with the new string.

Paul

Should Christians run for public office?  Emphatically, yes.

The very idea that Christians shouldn't be part of the governing body
of society is ludicrous.  Does this person expect to be an ambassador 
to all people, which include politicians (despite wry jokes), and then
tell a politician who gives his life to Christ through the Ambassador's
witness to give up being a politician?  Preposterous!

And if one can be a politician and saved while in office, and remain
for his term as a Christian politician (but presumably not run 
for re-election), then why can't one who is already saved and 
given over to Christ run for the self-same office?  There is NO
logic that stands up to scrutiny that says Christians should not
run for elected office.

The logic of being a citizen of heaven is short-sighted.  We are
DUAL-citizens of both heaven and earth.  And we represent the interests
of out King, yet can and should do so in this "material plane" that
we inhabit as also a citizen of earth.

Be ye in the world, but not of the world.  Don't be polluted by
the world but be [light, salt, ambassadors] *IN* the world [of 
society, global custodians, government (politics), etc.].

We can be politicians if we want to be, but we are to operate
as Christian politicians (and I know some people debate this 
as an oxymoron, but I happen to know some Christian politicians
and Christian lawyers).  If you can be a Christian plumber, 
writer, secretary, housekeeper, executive, or sewer worker, 
then you can be a Christian politician.

Mark

    re .0
    
>    he started with paul's description of christians as ambassadors
>    of Jesus, citizens of heaven, not of this world, etc.  he was
>    building a case that an ambassador from the u.s.a. to france
>    would not go over there and try to change the way they were
>    running their country, but would be there just to represent
>    the interests of the u.s.a.
>    
>    using this logic, we christians should just be in the u.s.a.
>    speaking about Jesus, representing His interests, but not 
>    running for public office, voting, speaking out again/in favor
>    of certain sociopolitical issues, etc.
    
    	For what it's worth, with the addition of a few other Scriptural
    principles, this is precisely the stand that Jehovah's Witnesses take
    on politics.
    
    
    								-mark.

So it is!  So it is!

;-)