Yes, that is a newspaper headline but I also think that it
happens to be true and I hope that you will allow me to explain why
I think that Christian political lobby groups are a
misrepresentation of the Gospel.
In John 4:1-38 and John 8:1-11 Jesus confronts two women who
have obviously not been living up to the standards held in Jewish
law, yet in neither case does Jesus accuse them of being
sinners. Instead his goal is redemption and in the case of
John 4 many Samaritans end up believing.
In a number of places in the Gospels Jesus said,Your sins are
forgiven,in a way that suggested that sin was no longer really a
problem. This was something that the religious leaders had a
very big issue with as there whole system of worship and sacrifices
was built around the fact of atoning for sin.
If we then contrast Jesus attitude towards sin and sinners with
Christian lobby groups like Festival of Light and others we see a
big difference. Most of what Christian lobby groups do is
focus on the sin and try and get sinners to obey the law when it is
not in there nature to do so. Essentially the message that
Christian lobby groups preach boils down to 'you are a sinner and
you sin'. It is nothing more than a moral religious crusade
design to impose our moral standards on all non-christians.
The significant issue with this is that this is not the Gospel,
Christianity is not a moral crusade. Christianity is about
redemption and transformation.
But this is the new covenant I will make with
the people of Israel on that day, says the LORD: I will put my laws
in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts.
I will be their God, and they will be my people(NLT).
When we become Christians God writes his laws on our
hearts. What Christian political lobby groups are trying to
accomplish, but never can, is already occurring in churches all
around the world every day, when people choose to follow
Jesus. Political lobbying reduces Christianity to a moral
crusade making Christianity like every other religion, nothing more
than a system of rules and regulations that robs it of its true
power.
The only way to accomplish what Christian political lobby groups
want is to change the hearts of the people through salvation.
Once this is done the laws of the country will take care of
themselves.
There are no short cuts to the Great Commision.