PRAYER AND POLITICS

Church and politics, where is the heresy?

 

Our nations have become deeply secular. Through the European free market, Mammon is being glorified, and through laws for issues such as abortion, euthanasia or same sex marriage, life and family values are being rocked. In this very sad picture, I find it even sadder to see that so many Christians choose to be inactive. The famous quote from Edmund Burke: “all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” is unfortunately still very accurate.

 

Some days ago, Europeans were invited to choose their national representatives for the European parliament. Before that day, I got the opportunity to be involved a little behind the scenes, encouraging Christians to vote, to pray for the politicians (1 Tim 2:1-2) and even to get actively engaged in politics.

 

To my surprise, I saw quite a bit of resistance to the idea that a Christian should be engaged in politics. One of the ideas in our circles is that since “we don’t belong to this world” (John 15:19), we should therefore not be bothered to serve our nations. With such a statement, it is easy to choose to withdraw from the political realm, which is even sometimes depicted as satanic.

 

Finland is a case in point. With around 12% of its population being churchgoers, it is one of the leading countries in Europe in that respect. The local Christian Democrat Party (KD) ran for the elections with hopes to see Sari Essayah, its only representative during the previous mandate, being re-elected. However, KD, with a result below 6%, didn’t make it. How come? Maybe one of the reasons is that many Christians in Finland consider that they shouldn’t be involved in politics and many of them didn’t even go to vote.

 

But is this Biblical? We could think that David, Solomon and all the other kings were only meant to serve Israel – and therefore, since the Church is to be the new Israel, we should only serve the Church. This would make sense if we take out of the picture the role God had in mind for Israel, that to be a blessing for all the nations (Genesis 12:3).

 

And what about Joseph or Daniel? They served unjust nations that worshipped other gods. However, thanks to Joseph’s ministry in Egypt, this land managed to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe during the famine. Also, thanks to Daniel’s ministry in both the kingdoms of Babylon and Persia, all the kings got to know the living God, provoking them to adjust their laws according to God’s principles.

 

We could then also think that Daniel and Joseph were forced to serve in these nations. But this won’t make sense if we know that Jeremiah encouraged Daniel to serve the kingdom of Babylon (Jeremiah 29:7). Neither Joseph’s nor Daniel’s values were in line with those of the kingdoms, but within these hostile environments, they managed to set the example.

 

It is indeed true that we don’t belong to this world but this doesn’t mean that we can’t serve our nations, even though secularism is the dominant religion – God being de facto out of the picture. Didn’t Jesus tell his disciples to be the light of the world and didn’t he tell them that we don’t put a light under a bowl but that it should be put on its stand so it can give light to all the people in the house?

 

Slavery would never have been abolished from the British Empire if William Wilberforce, a devout Christian, hadn’t engaged in politics. Today, we wouldn’t have enjoyed 70 years of peace if another Christian, Robert Schuman, hadn’t considered his calling to serve the nation and promote the value of forgiving the German enemy after World War II.

 

In this dark world, the nations need more than ever to see the light. If we, European Christians, claim to carry it, we must put it on its stand so it will give light to all the people in the house called Europe.

 

Cédric Placentino

June 6, 2014