The Kingdom and the Church

From Howard Snyder's Liberating the Church: The Ecology of Church and Kingdom:

Kingdom people seek first the Kingdom of God and its justice; church people often put church work above concerns of justice, mercy and truth. Church people think about how to get people into the church; Kingdom people think about how to get the church into the world. Church people worry that the world might change the church; Kingdom people work to see the church change the world.

Aftermath Stats

Barna has released some interesting statistics on who voted for whom. The research primarily illustrates voting tendencies of different categories (evangelicals, born again, protestants, Catholics) of Christians.

It's an interesting read.

Living in a Monarchy

Dual citizenship makes for an interesting life. Though we are first and foremost citizens in the Kingdom of God, we are Americans too. Naturally, we have high hopes for our country and a deep pride in our American heritage. This Sunday at Meadowbrook we will gather to honor those in our Body of believers who have served our great country in military service and sacrifice. Each of us has a deep appreciation for the privilege of living in this great land and we are eager to express our gratitude to these service men and women!

On the heels of our recent election we would do well to remember that, although we might be hopeful for our new president and government, true peace, a loving society, and God's brand of justice can never be accomplished through a worldly kingdom. Ultimately, these things can only come through God’s Kingdom. Our faith and hope must be put squarely in King Jesus.

As God’s people, we must always remember that living in this country is a precious blessing, and we are called to use all of God’s blessings for His glory. No matter our personal political opinions, we should continually pray for our country and her leadership. In doing so, we bring the concerns of our country to the throne of God, and we submit our country to the will of God. In hopeful but uncertain times, remember that you are first called to live under the reign of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ. He is King of kings and Lord of lords!

Voting on the Issues

Several people have wondered aloud with me how Christians should vote this election. Certainly many Christians will vote for both presidential candidates. Some Christians on both sides of the election can't understand how another Christian could see the issues differently than they do. I don't believe a Christian's preferred candidate should cast doubts on her sincerity of faith. My understanding of Scripture and current worldview lead me to choose one candidate over another, as does everyone's.

Regardless of the outcome of this election, the Kingdom of Heaven will survive. Of course, since we've survived bad leadership in the past, I'm confident that even our nation will survive, regardless of the outcome of the election, but more importantly I'm confident in the survival and continued thriving of God's Kingdom.

Nevertheless, Christians ought to desire to participate in the political discussions and processes, at least in my mind. Shouldn't we weigh each issue carefully, through our lens of knowing God and being salt and light in the world?

To that end, Sojourners has published a Christian Voters' Issue Guide, which seems to be a well thought out overview of many of the hot button issues our country is currently facing.

It's a great read to spur some thought. Of course, hopefully all Christians want to help the poor, reduce abortions, etc., ... the tough questions arise when we discuss how to go about doing those things.

Global Warming and Christian Unity

I realize there are a lot of doomsayers out there when it comes to environmental issues. I also realize we only have about 150 years or so of precise weather data which, given the length of the history of the world, isn't enough data to really predict trends. Still, the prospect that there won't be any ice at the north pole this summer is alarming to me. This could just be a blip and we might have huge increases in the north pole ice volumes in the next 50 years or so, but the current situation is alarming nonetheless.

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I'm not much of a preacher, but I whole-heartedly believe the words I preached a couple of weeks ago. Here's the sermon audio. One of the strongest reasons I stay in the Restoration Movement is because we have a heritage of unity.

In matters of faith, we have unity.
In matters of opinion, we offer liberty.
In all things, we love.

A Significant Shift

I hate to bump my last post so quickly. Hopefully some of you will scroll down to read it. While this post runs in the same vein, I thought it was appropriate to get it posted on Super Tuesday.

A significant shift has occurred among American Christians (or is it Christian Americans?). Barna's latest research indicates that a majority of Christians will likely vote democratic this year.

Here's an excerpt:

Today we have a greater proportion of faith-driven voters who are concerned about issues that are often thought of as 'liberal' social policy concerns, such as poverty and health care. Abortion and family protection remain significant issues to the faith constituency, but they are not the only issues that matter to the group - or even the driving issues.

Americans' Thoughts on Healthcare

Not that anyone looks at this blog anymore, but check out CBS' article on what Americans think about healthcare.

For those of you that live your lives according to the ways of Jesus of Nazareth, what do you think about universal health care?

Certainly universal health care would cost more, so would you accept the cost in order to have let healing of the sick be distributed more justly?

The stats CBS state are surprising to me. If the vast majority of Americans think our healthcare system needs wide sweeping change, why aren't our politicians giving more effort to such a seemingly universal desire?