Church, Not State, Must Advance Moral Agenda

Read the latest Cal Thomas column, "Church, not state, must advance moral agenda."

Excerpt:

Christians are limited in what government can do for them and for an earthly agenda.

That does not mean government can't do some things. It simply means it cannot advance a moral and spiritual agenda, because it is the church, not the state, that is commissioned to preach and observe God's message.

And alarming news:

Barna has noted that as many conservative Christians are divorcing as those who are of different religious persuasions, or of no religion, and as many of the children of conservative Christians are having sex as non-Christian children.

But the ordained and self-appointed conservative Christian leaders do not seem to preach as much to their own about these shortcomings (or, if they do, they are not heeded) as they do to the rest of the country about theirs.

Wouldn't these conservative Christians have greater moral power if they put their own houses in order before trying to cure the disorder in other houses? Isn't that the principle behind Jesus' story about noticing a speck in the other fellow's eye, while ignoring the beam in one's own eye?

What good is it, my Christian friends, if we know the truth and we speak the truth but we ourselves don't abide by it? How can we be light to a darkened world if our own batteries are dead?

To the first point his article raises, the big difference between conservative Christians and liberal Christians is not the amount of compassion for the poor, but in government's role in dealing with them. In my view, the government is (and should be) very limited in its ability to dole out compassion. That's the role of PEOPLE! It has been shown by studies that liberals give less to charities than conservatives...perhaps because they already contribute to their favorite charity: the Federal government who does our job of taking care of the poor for us.

To the second point, let's be sure our houses are in order before we hold rallies and tell everyone else how God wants them to live.

I question the statistics and I wonder who they define as a conservative Christian. In my church of 1000 members (500 average attendance), I know of very few divorces and we have had very few teen pregnancies. Of course, that's just a microcosm of the society at-large, but I can't believe that the families in my church (as ordinary as they are) don't somewhat accurately reflect the overall Christian culture of America. Our church is full of young, newly converted Christians who haven't got it all figured out yet, but they're trying.

I don't doubt that Christians need to do a better job of walking the walk before talking the talk, but I do have to wonder if these "statistics" aren't just a case of making the numbers work out to make the point they want to make.