A short note on Church and State

I just caught a CNN special presentation called "God's Warriors" with Christiane Amanpour a few minutes ago. One of the personalities featured on the programme was Greg A. Boyd, an American preacher who stirred up controversy in the Evangelical church in America when he refused to abuse his influence over his flock to advance a particular political agenda or to allow his pulpit to be a platform for political propaganda. He attacks the notion of America being a 'Christian nation' and argues that the many Christians are getting side-tracked by social issues (or social ills) and law reform. He argues that Christians should be busy about 'God's business' of witnessing the unsaved world.

America is certainly not the only country to face this. The fact that churches have come out time and again to voice their objections on issues such as the repealing of section 377A of the Penal Code is a case in point. Also, I know for a fact that there are churches in Singapore (I have one in mind, but I shall not name it here) where they sing patriotic songs on National Day and even have a "Singapore hymn" in the church hymnal!

Of course there is absolutely nothing wrong with a Christian being patriotic. To a large extent, its our responsibility as citizens of the country. But don't make the mistake of putting a 'Christian label' to it, that as a Christian, we must vote in a particular way (not so much as issue in Singapore as it is in America) or that we have a Christian reponsibility to seek changes in law or, worse still, to institute biblical law in our respective countries!

Although, I've come across Boyd and writings before (at a time when I was alot more of a 'fundamentalist') and disagreed with him on a number of points, I would certainly agree with him on the points above (also, I think my views on many things have evolved and matured over the years since reading his book, 'letters from a skeptic'). One area where I would still disagree with him on (although completely irrelevant to the issue at hand) is that of 'Open Theism' - ther idea that God does not fully know the future as human have not yet made the choices that would affect it (I believe this is his attempt to make sense of something that transcends human understanding, but its unsatisfactory to me). Then again, I guess one cannot expect to agree with anyone on everything, nor can anyone be right about everything!

Notwithstanding the fact that I have had little interest in reading more Christian literature (I don't think I've picked up a Christian book in a few years) I must say that I find myself intrigued enough to buy a copy of his book on the issue (entitled, “The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church”). If I do, I'll be sure to post a review on this blog.

For those who are interested to read further, here's a link to an article in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/us/30pastor.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ei=5087&en=34ccb5db8fcf8eca&ex=1154491200&adxnnlx=1192896481-6vZLx/2RVhcyrCVEsh5/og