Christian Nation Building

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. -- John 15:10

It is almost like a tautology, because the vital commandment of Christ is to abide in love, to love God and to love our neighbors.  As we are told elsewhere in Scripture:  Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law (Romans 13:10).

Love does what is right by others.  Love also confronts, protects, and defends.  Love sacrifices for the good of those we love.  Sometimes that means not defending ourselves against slander.  Sometimes it means letting air and light into evil.  There is no way to keep the commandments of Christ or abide in His love apart from the Holy Spirit. 

Lewis says somewhere that a truly Christian society would be “right wing” in its moral behavior but very nearly communistic in its social structure.  In other words, it would not be vastly different from the rural community where I grew up.  Though we were far from perfect, people cared what their neighbors thought – for the most part, and we could count on family, friends and neighbors giving aid to those in need.  Everyone I knew was a cultural Christian if not an actual church-goer. 

Culture, without the salt of practicing Christians, becomes corrupt over time.  Communism and socialism attempt to impose the acts of love through force.  In a different context, this is known as rape.  The socialists never seem to learn.  The instant they have control of the power of the state we are all going to live in their imagined utopia – whether we like it or not.

The reason the communist is so hostile to Christianity is because Christians take care of one another without the coercive power of the state.  The state can’t be god in that case.  The priests of the state cannot gain power over people who don’t need to be forced to do the right thing.  This is not to mention how the “right thing” as defined by the state is what is good for the state and its ministers rather than what is good for one’s neighbor. 

I don’t want a government that is Christian.  Christians do not need much government.  We don’t need “faith-based” initiatives.  Take away all the federal regulations, all the programs and bureaucracies – and leave the money it takes to run a massive and equally inefficient government in our pockets.  Stop being hostile to Christians and the country will become a better place.  Get rid of welfare.  The Church will take care of the homeless, the orphan, and the unwed mothers.  Christians will build hospitals and clinics that anyone can walk into if there is no Medicare, Medicaid or private insurance.  There will be more St. Jude’s.  We will fund the medical research.  We don’t need government schools.  We can build our own and educate our children as we see fit with Christian values. 

Of course, none of that can happen until we kill all the lawyers.*

*Just kidding