God and Government

I sometimes feel like going fishing and letting the world pass me by. This was late 70s, and quite a good size bass in Mississippi from the little pond behind the Barnharts house.

I was suggesting to the Men's Bible Study that God puts people in office and we should be good citizens even if we don't really like those in power. Don't hold me to the exact nature of the discussion as there was give and take, but, oddly, I felt like I was a kid again hearing all those ready to be active protesters and civil disobedient we will obey God rather than men types. Conservatives are really feeling like we are being persecuted and ignored in the spirit of the times, and tension levels are really up there in the hearts, minds, and voices of folks our age.

They feel that we must take a stand on the gay marriage issue or the nation will fall. No wiggle room.

Can cultural decline be halted? Why are so many confessing Christians leading unholy lives? When you add the issues of a taxation plan that robs from the productive and gives to what seems like groups unwilling to work, and the out of control nature of big government and debt....well you have a pretty steamed up group.

So who knows where we are in the big chess game, as a grace guy, I just get a bit jumpy about railing against lists of sins and enforcing biblical morality being the way out of our present situations. I am all for hoping Christians actually live Christ like lives in moral purity, but what about being Christ like toward people who speak and dress and have different worldviews? Is this not our mission. Are we condemning or are we compassionate?