From Christians would be a large voting-block if a majority of them voted and voted consistently. Unfortunately, too many Christians are under the false belief that whatever the government is doing, they must support it because it is “ordained by God.” Here is an email I received from one such confused Christian. It’s typical of a lot of Christian thinking today:
God does not need Christians to take over governments in order for Him to rule on earth. On the contrary, God says the governments are ordained by Him, and it is our duty to pray for those in authority, not scheme to take over.
Thanks,
TD
He included in his PS that he did not “need a response.” Yes he does, as do many others. So here it is.
First, while it’s true that civil government is ordained by God, so are family and church governments. If there are problems in a particular family or church, shouldn’t we be about fixing the problems? Civil governments don’t get a pass when they do bad things.
Second, is praying for those who are in authority all we should do? How often have the people in Germany been criticized when the majority of the population did nothing when they learned of what Adolf Hitler was doing to the Jews? Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch Christian, who with her father and other family members helped many Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust during World War II. When Jews entered their watch shop, should they have sent them away and told them that the Nazi government was “ordained by God” and that they would pray or the frightened Jews? Should we praise the informant who turned them into the Gestapo because the informant was “supporting the God-ordained” government?
Second, speaking out when an elected official violates his oath of office or working to remove a government official from office is not “scheming to take over” government; it’s the way God ordained governments to work, at least here in the United States!
Third, it’s the duty of citizens to insure that civil governments stay within their jurisdictional boundaries. This is exactly what the apostle Paul did when he questioned the authority of a civil official regarding his rights as a Roman citizen (Acts 22:23–30) and later appealed to Caesar (25:11).
“But when [the Roman soldiers] stretched him out with thongs, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, ‘Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman and uncondemned?’”
If it was right for Paul to “protest” this single violation of his rights as a Roman citizen, why is it wrong to protest constitutional violations given the fact that Constitution itself in the First Amendment gives us the right — the obligation — to “petition the government for a redress of grievances”? Following the Constitution is not “scheming to take it over.”
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