BLOG 6/10/17. WHAT TO MAKE OF A TROUBLED GOVERNMENT?

BLOG 6/10/17. WHAT TO MAKE OF A TROUBLED GOVERNMENT?

This past week has been troubling beyond belief, and shattered our naïveté about human leadership. To watch a former FBI leader designate the president of the United States as a ‘liar’ before a senate committee would be unthinkable … until now. History records other periods when one’s trust in government undergoes cataclysmic disillusionment. One of my own denomination’s confessional documents is the Westminster Confession of Faith, which contains a chapter on: Of Civil Magistrate, in which it lays out for the church’s faithful an understanding of where civil governments fit into God’s design, and what our responsibility to such authorities would be. It concludes with the exhortation: “It is the duty of the people to pray for magistrates, to honor their persons, and to be subject to their authority, for conscience. …”

The irony here is that this confession was written after the British revolution during which the Puritans under Oliver Cromwell captured and beheaded the king of England. But the confession was the attempt by the revolutionary government to provide a guide for all the populace (1649).

But just here, I find a more contemporary guide for faith and worship produced by the Christian Reformed Church to be much more helpful, and at the end of this troubling week I share it with you, since we do need to give serious thought to how we respond to so much that is distressing in those in whose hand is our common welfare (from stanzas 52 and 53):

We obey God first;

we respect the authorities that rule,

for they are established by God:

we pray for our rulers,

and we work to influence governments—

resisting them only when Christ and conscience demand.

We are thankful for the freedoms

Enjoyed by citizens of many lands;

We grieve with those who live under oppression,

And we seek for them the liberty to live without fear.

We call on governments to do public justice

and to protect the rights and freedoms

of individuals, groups, and institutions

so that each may do their tasks.

We urge governments and pledge ourselves

to safeguard children and the elderly

from abuse and exploitation,

to bring justice to the poor and oppressed,

and to promote the freedom

to speak, work, worship, and associate.

Followers of the Prince of Peace

are called to be peacemakers … (and much more that is helpful to us.)

[From: Our World Belongs to God: A Contemporary Testimony. 2008.]

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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