Church and Politics

Yesterday I attended the first of 2 discussions on "God in Australia"
We were first asked which of the following four options we would choose in order for our church to take a more active public role in political life.
1. Identify certain principles and seek to have them incorporated into public life, that is become a lobby group.
2. Form a new Christian political party and seek to control the balance of power in the upper house.
3. Do nothing. Decide that politics and religion are two separate entities.
4. Train our people to identify important issues in public life and act in accordance with what they discover.

I came down definitely for option 4.

It was interesting to learn that Option 1 is the Roman Catholic view as seen in the pressure unsuccessfully applied to our State parliament last year over stem cell legislation ( and I would add abortion in the USA)

Option 2 is the Calvinist view as seen in the Family First party which currently hold the balance (along with the Greens and another 1 person party) in the Senate of our Commonwealth Parliament and was established by the Assemblies of God and also Fred Nile's Christian Democratic party which has long had members in our own NSW State parliament and is strongly anti-homosexual.
It was questioned why our own Calvinist Diocese has not done this (although probably many of its members do support the Christian Democratic party) and were told it is probably due to the pre-millenial views of the diocese which sees little to be gained by trying to improve society before the 2nd coming.

Option 3 I was surprised to learn is Lutheran and one of the reasons why the majority of the Lutheran church with some notable exceptions did not stand up to Hitler until it was too late.

Finally Option 4 is Anglican deriving from Archbishop Temple so I felt vindicated in my choice.