I am not sure if you have heard of Wheaton College and/or their Annual Theology Conference that is held in April, but either way, you should check out their media archives from this years conference. You can see watch videos or listen to the lectures here.
This years theme or topic was Christianity and Politics. The topic strikes a cord in us doesn’t it? It seems implicitly unsettling, controversial, and perhaps not important. Unsettling and controversial?-I get those two reactions. Not important on the other hand could not be further from the truth. I think the role of government and the role of the church is something often misunderstood and watered down to a simple repetition of Romans 13 or 1 Peter 3. I’m convinced that the Bible just doesn’t talk of politics but instead that the Christian faith is a politic in and of itself (stirring the pot, I know- but I have to give credit to Stanely Hauerwas for this). There is a vast history of relations between church and state, and there is so much of that history that pertains to the predicament of the church and state today.
In any case, the first lecture I listened to from this conference was “Church Matters” by Stanley Hauweras. I will leave you with a quote from his lecture in which he states, “Christians no longer believe that the church is an alternative politics to the politics of the world, which means we have lost any way to account for Christians in the past who thought they had a faith worth dying for”. I hope you are able to ponder the question of Christianity and politics deeply through some of these lectures.
Poiema 