It's Election Season! "Role of the Church" Part I

Role of the Church

Throughout American history, church leaders have spoken out on the vital moral issues of the day, whether it be slavery, civil rights, or in defense of the family and the dignity of human life. One of the enduring lessons the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK), a Christian minister, taught is the power a religious community can have in society. MLK said, "The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority." The Church is the advocate of justice and of the poor precisely because she does not identify with politicians nor with partisan efforts. The Church’s role is to teach morality, guide our conscience and offer an ethical choice that goes beyond politics. The Church teaches moral absolutes simply because they are true and not because a political party may also agree. When the church loses its voice, the country loses its conscience.

     Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led the movement to persuade government to impose a particular belief on America that all men are equal in the eyes of God. It was a movement that found its deepest conviction in Christianity. Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen said: “Moral principles do not depend on a majority vote. Wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong. Right is right, even if nobody is right.”  And “the refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil.” 

 If you’ve ever heard someone say, “Christians should stay neutral on political issues “or “God doesn’t care about political issues” or “Evangelism only matters in eternity; it doesn’t change how a person votes,” you have been targeted by deception. These are subtle delusions designed to shut down your influence on the direction of American life. The goal of the enemy is to mute Christians by eliminating your viewpoint from the national discourse and to censor the biblical worldview from our culture. We will not be silent, we will continue to preach the Gospel boldly, come what may. Evil draws its power from indecision and concern for what other people think. Our voice must not be drowned out.

     “If by interference in politics is meant judging or condemning a philosophy of life which makes the party, or the state, or the class, or the race the source of all rights, and which usurps the soul and enthrones party over conscience and denies those basic rights for which this war was fought, the answer is emphatically: Yes! The Church does judge such a philosophy. But when it does this, it is not interfering with politics, for such politics is no longer politics but theology. When a state sets itself up as absolute as God, when it claims sovereignty over the soul, when it destroys freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, then the State has ceased to be political and has begun to be a counter-Church,” wrote Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen.