Should the government make people do what God’s children should be doing out of their own good heart?
When government takes from those in the world who have, to give to others it fosters rebellion on one end and slothfulness on the other. In addition, government uses the redistribution of wealth to further its own worldly social agendas instead of the heavenly agenda that free will charity would bring.
Many of the problems in the world are because of blatant sin choices that people have made and that government often enables or even promotes. Treating sin symptom problems when government helps spread the disease is an exercise in futility.
Tony Campolo thinks that you can can Christianize the world political systems. That has been tried before and it ends in tyranny. Jesus never suggested that the Church would Christianize the world. He clearly indicates that He will deal with evil on earth when he returns. After that he will rule the nations with a rod of Iron. Even in that dispensation of justice under the Messiah, if a man will not work he will not eat and if a man practices perversion he will be cut off from the land.
The whole concept that the world can be Christianized by joint government and faith based social actions does not originate in the Bible it originates with socialists who identify with Christianity but believe in secular humanism. They have more faith in sinful man to solve his problems then in a righteous God who already paid the price for all those who will believe, repent from there evil ways and do things led by His Spirit.
Sacrifice is not meant to be easy. Sacrifice is not painless. And personal sacrifice is clearly what Jesus is prescribing for His followers in Matthew 25 – and throughout the rest of the Bible, for that matter.Jesus doesn’t suggest spreading the pain and sacrifice by forcing non-believers to carry the load. Jesus doesn’t suggest reducing our own responsibility by foisting it upon the entire nation. Jesus doesn’t suggest stealing from the rich to give to the poor.
But that’s what Campolo’s version of enlightened Christian socialism is all about. He specifically says problems like poverty are too big for the individual and too big for the church. Only government can tackle them, he says. Gee, I wonder why Jesus forgot to mention that to us?
