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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Steve Massey: Politicized Christianity looks little like Jesus’ example

There’s a wrong way to be right.

Few people show this more clearly, or frequently, than Idaho’s far right, what with its insistence on legislating morality, a la yesteryear’s Moral Majority.

In the last month, Idaho has gained national notoriety – embarrassment, really – with a vocal minority’s brainstorm to declare the state a Christian one.

The proposal from a faction of the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee fizzled before a formal vote on its merits. But not before it provided some colorful chalk for the latest caricatures of Christians as angry legalists eager to stifle contrary worldviews.

As a Christian, I’d like to ask a favor of the folks coming up with these ideas: Please stop. Please stop painting a picture of Christians in our community that looks little, if anything, like Jesus Christ.

And I’d like to remind conservative politicos – however well-intentioned – that the kingdom of God grows not by man-made methods, but by the power of grace working in individual hearts. More specifically, the gospel.

Don’t take my word for it. Consider this caution from the Apostle Paul:

“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God …” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).

Is there a culture war raging around us? Yes.

Are God’s ways – inarguably the founding principles of our nation – increasingly ignored, rejected, even mocked? Yes.

Are politics, government reform, or community activism the best ways to correct our course? No. Not at all.

There’s a wrong way to be right.

God’s own word insists that this warfare pits right from wrong (not right from left) and is first and foremost spiritual, as opposed to carnal or earthly.

Spiritual warfare requires spiritual weapons: prayer, proclaiming the true gospel – that Christ came into the world to save sinners, not condemn them – and the testimony of lives lived rightly. In other words, it’s who we are as genuine Christians – not what we rant and rave about politically – that is more often used of God to change individual hearts.

And true cultural change must happen this way – one heart at a time.

Again, God’s own word is instructive: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

What ultimately leads to God’s glory among people is the light of Christ’s grace and truth in full display – not a government or political edict.

I do think Christian politicians are correct to engage our culture with biblical truth. We need elected officials who intelligently, in the context of good government, stand for issues of life, family and even morality.

But how such cultural engagements are being made lately needs much improvement. More grace, less bravado, is in order. And much, much less pandering to a constituency pleased to polarize the community.

Christianity is furthered when Christians separate themselves from sin in the culture, not from sinners in the culture. Holiness and humility, not anger and activism, are the way of the cross.

I agree wholeheartedly that a Christian worldview is not only right, but best, for any state or nation.

But that belief need not distract us from the truth that in Christ’s life, death and resurrection “the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared.”

Happily, some good can come from proposals like the one kicked around in Kootenai County recently. They show us the folly of using man’s methods to do God’s work.

They remind us that there are wrong ways to be right.

Steve Massey is pastor of Hayden Bible Church (www.haydenbible.org). He can be reached at (208) 772-2511 or steve@haydenbible.org.