Originally posted by Quantum Weirdness
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The idea of changing country because one dislikes what its legislators say strikes me as unChristian and selfish, as a denial of the social character of Christianity and the Church and society. People who love their country won't jump ship because they dislike its laws or people - they will stay with it, and seek to better it from within. The Church is not kept apart from the world, but is sent into its midst; not because the world is virtuous, but because it needs the Gospel. How can Christians bring the Gospel to society, or hope to make it make effective in society, if they flee from society ? Maybe God has put them in society because He wants them there.
Christ did not try to escape His countrymen - He went around doing good to them by mixing with them, by being identified with them. To save them from the curse of God, He participated in that curse by dying the accursed death of the Cross; He did not come down from it, or seek to avoid it. He can almost be said to have sought it out. This is almost the reverse of the familiar "Come out of her, My people" attitude to Christian holiness and society round about. If society is sick - and it always is, not least because Christians always are - surely our business is to stay in it and with it, while not being of it. How can we be a leaven in a society from which we are absent ?
If someone in the US thinks of leaving the US because he does not like certain social tendencies in it, he would not survive long in the UK. I wish the UK had a quarter of the Christian resources that Christians in the US seem to take for granted. There is plenty wrong in the US, but there is plenty right as well. Why is that so seldom pointed out. Whatever complaints Christians in the West may have, they have life very easy indeed compared to a great many Christians, who in some countries are scarcely permitted to live. Ask the Copts in Egypt or the Assyrians, Anglicans and Catholics in Iraq. No Christians in the US have been crucified, drowned or buried alive for refusing to apostasise.
Something is wrong when Christians throw in the towel because society is becoming deChristianised. To some extent, that is their own fault, for not correcting Fundamentalist notions that emphasise the Rapture to the extent of giving up on society. If Christians have a pessimistic view of the Church and society, and are hostile to the social gospel in all its forms, even though Christ preached the Good News of the Reign of God, which is a reign of social righteousness (among other things), they cannot really complain when society becomes ever less influenced by a Christian outlook 😧 🐱
Answer to the question: take it to the Cross.
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