Christians and Politics

Message / Question

why are you so interested in politics? Isn’t Christianity supposed to be above politics? what about the separation between church and state? Didn’t Jesus say give to Caesar what is Caesars and god what is gods. Politics is about people, church is about god

Response:

That we are in the world but not of the world is certainly true, but that doesn’t mean that have no interest in what is happening around us! Sometimes I think that the lack of interest shown by many Christians in politics is a great contributor to the mess that our nation is in today. If we are to be true citizens, then we should take an interest in the way we are governed. The separation of church and state is an American model, not an Australian model – in fact, in Great Britain, the Queen is head of both the State AND the Church of England! True, we give to Caesar that which is Caesar’s – so we pay our taxes etc, but one of the things that “Caesar” (in our case, the Australian Government) says is that each citizen has the right to be involved in the political life of the nation and each citizen is required to vote to elect governments at all levels in the nation. To say that politics is about people, church is about God misses the point that God is also very much about people. God loves people and cares for us and we too should care for each other in the way that He does. I care about Australia and I care about people; in fact I care enough to be involved in the political system to try to influence it to remember that we have a great Christian heritage that we should endeavour to preserve!