Constantine

I went to the Mayor's annual prayer breakfeast this morning. It was odd. Every politician in town was there as well as most of the pastors. A friend just told me that Tony Campolo once said the last thing we need is another born again leader. We had one once, his name was Constantine, and we all know what trouble that caused the Church.

The speaker for the morning, some county judge, got up and spent a lot of time talking about the Constitution, ten commandments, prayer in schools, homosexuals, and all the other hot button topics in our country today. Basically saying we need to put God back in this country cause we're going to Hell in a handbasket.

Granted we probably are going to Hell in a handbasket, but is that the way to go about it. I think we first must admit that we are no longer a Christian country (and probably never were). We must begin to see the issues in the terms the New Testament Church saw it; not as Church and state, but as Church and World. The state is a part of the world, plain and simple. At times they might help us and that could be good, but we should never count on there help or expect it.

We seem to want the state to smash our opposition and do what we want done. I rather like to think the Church needs to be subversive. By being who we were called to be and changing things from below. By washing feet, sticking up for the powerless, boldly preaching the Gospel to all, letting our selves be doormates, feeding the hungry, and loving the unloveable.

Somehow putting all our energy into forcing prayer into schools, forcing the Ten Commandments into court houses, and forcing our country to ban homosexual marriages doesn't seem like what the New Testament Church had in it's mission statement. They understood the world was going to act like the world (remember the state is part of the world) and they needed to act like the Church. Maybe we need to stop expecting so much from the world and start expecting more from ourselves.