Posted by
Mark McConnell on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 6:02:19 PM
I've read, appreciatively, several of Michael Medved's columns including
Religion, madness and secular paranoia and,
Why Does the Book Business Demonize Christians? , which arose on account of Sam Harris's fear of Christian influence in society. Today also,
Andrew Sullivan was on Michael's show, expressing concern about Christian influence muddying the conservative cause. "Christianist" has entered our vocabulary, borrowing the same scary intonations as "Islamist".
Is there really an issue here? It is to trivialize the facts, to say that there is not. Here is a statement of fact, that rarely appears so boldly as this:
Christians are theocrats.
Christians pray, "thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." They teach furthermore, that all authority in heaven and on earth - the
sovereign rule which belongs to God alone - has been given to the man, Jesus
Christ, who reigns at the right hand of God. They feel duty bound to render unto Caesar what is made in Caesar's image, but by the same principle they render unto God what is made in God's image (is Caesar human?).
Christians believe in God and acknowledge from his law that it is wrong for anyone to
covet or envy, lie or slander, compromise the covenant of marriage, deprive another of right to property or life, dishonor parents, rely for ultimate safety in any but God, invoke God's name meaninglessly, or to serve idols. Bottom line, Christians believe that it is foolishness not to have any
god, and a moral failure for any made in God's image to have other gods than the Living One, the
Eternal God, who befriended Abram and explains himself in Jesus Christ.
You can paper this over with convoluted qualifications, or cast the false impression by duplicitous speech that the rubber doesn't meet the road until some later time, but the fact of the matter is that Christians do not trust ultimately in pluralism, democracy or any other politics, or victory through warfare, for determining who should rule or how they should rule, because the Lord is Jesus.
If Christians are theocrats, believing that God's king over his creation is not yet to appear, for he has come: what difference will this make from now to the end of the world? If they believe that his coming was not in vain, for he has risen from the dead: where is he to be looked for now? If they say that he is not awaiting rule, for he has ascended to the throne of God: what is the evidence of his authority, the proof of his reign?
As many as 2 billion people in the world profess to be Christians, and millions are secret converts in Muslim and Communist countries. If only
5 percent of these are orthodox, they outnumber the approximately 100
million who support militant Islam.
You tell me, if that doesn't sound scary. If people are more afraid of Christians than of Muslims, why do you ask why?
If you are a Christian, I invite you to ponder such questions, through
the borrowed eyes of your non-Christian neighbor. Consider, if the
questions interest you, what this all means to those around you who do
not believe as you do.
Christian theocracy is an offense and terror to the modern world. Christians are regarded as one would a time-bomb, or a storm gathering strength offshore. There is much misunderstanding of Christian theocracy, producing varieties of interpretations among Christians themselves, and this adds to its terrifying aspect.
I leave you with the question to ponder its implications: because I'm persuaded that it is a watershed question of history, the issue of the age. Orthodox Christians are theocrats.
What does that mean, and what are you going to do about it?