Public Laws or Pursue Personal Transformation?

Is loving your neighbor a spiritual or legal issue? Is protecting people from injustice and promoting equality a spiritual or legal issue? Is caring for the orphan, feeding the hungry, and housing the homeless a spiritual or legal issue? Perhaps more simply put: Are these things the role of the Church or the role of the government? I don’t think it’s helpful to make this an either/or, but ought to keep it as a both/and. As good citizens, Christians care about seeking justice and laws that preserve the dignity of all people. But they pursue these things first and foremost as acts of Christian “good deeds” as Paul exhorts Titus. The Bible says little about governmental welfare or social programs. It was incumbent on the Church to be those who “remember those in prison” (Hebrews 13:3), and “visit orphans and widows” (James 1:27), and the like. Christians should not rely upon “big government” and social programs to do what God has called them to do. Differing positions may be taken as to how much, if at all, the government should also pursue social justice and love for neighbor. The Church should want to see legal policies that advance the good of all people, but that is never their highest aim. Spiritual change does not occur through a social gospel. However, the Gospel rooted in the hearts of Jesus-followers will have a social effect. Where Christians are operating as good citizens, people will be cared for as their spiritual need is exposed. 

* Over the next weeks I will be sharing excerpts from a “Gospel & Culture: Politics” paper I wrote to help us better understand how to “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17).