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bible standards for all
Categories: forty-blogs-of-lent
Tags: God, Church, Christianity, Politics
Date: 01 March 2012 00:12:44
Forty blogs of Lent
8
In the early 1970s the Nationwide Festival of Light had campaigns across Britain in order to stop what they saw as a moral decline in the country and campaigned for a return to Christian values. What did they achieve? To judge by what is shown on film and television these days I'd say very little apart from the invention of the word
sexploitation.
Fast forward to the 21st century.
In recent times Prime Minister David Cameron has been talking about Christian values in the UK, calling us a Christian nation.
Was the Prime Minister right? Were the Nationwide Festival of Light right 40 years ago? I don't think so. I don't think that we, as Christians, have any right to impose our values on society at large. the Bible is not a political manifesto.
Looking at the Old Testament it would look like I'm wrong. The first five books of the Bible are referred to by the Jews as the Law. They contain regulations on how murderers should be brought to trial, and what the sentence should be, through to regulations about personal hygiene.
What is more the Old Testament prophets complained about the kings bringing in unjust and oppressive decrees. There is such a thing as an unjust law.
Scripture shows a God who is concerned with the poor, the widowed, the orphaned and the alien. But the man whom Christians believe to fully embody god in action shows a different tack: When asked to arbitrate between two brothers argueing over their inheritance he refused saying, "Who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?" (Luke 12:14 NRSV) If jesus meant his followers to be the moral guardians of society he had a strange way of showing it.
Paul the Apostle was the same. Speaking to the church in Corinth about sexual immorality in that congregation he says, "For what have I to do with judging those outside? Is it not those who are inside that you are to judge?" (1 Corinthians 5:12)
So To sum up, I think we as Christians have a moral framework to live to. I believe we have a right to judge people inside the church for not living according to that moral framework. But I believe we have no right to impose that moral framework on those outside the faith.