Faith and the Founding Fathers part 3

If you haven’t read parts 1 and 2 scroll below and read those first.

Part 3….

Although many of the key founders focused on many things that drew them away from Jesus, the question must be asked – Is there anything we can learn from the founders about how to be a better Christian? What should our focus be rather than trying to Christianize America?

I think the “disinterest” of the founders discussed in part 2 is a great place to start. Because the founders cared so deeply for the success of the nation, they found a way to put all biases aside and they evaluated all things according to the greater good. What is the greater good of our church and our faith? How often do we ask ourselves this question as opposed to reacting without reflection to the things happening around us in our churches and in our country? When we don’t like the way the church approaches music, or evangelism, or church discipline, we often grow bitter and frustrated – approaching the church with a critical spirit – rather than evaluating things not based on our preferences but rather on the effectiveness that certain approaches have for others involved. We need to learn to remove our own interests and see how things affect the rest of our community. My belief is that very few of us in our church do this well.

The same goes for our approach to our country. We get all worked up because prayer is not in schools; how much time have we spent evaluating whether or not prayer in schools changes hearts and leads people to Christ? People often correlate prayer in schools with the trends in the nation’s crime rate, but I don’t think Jesus is as interested in the crime rate as he is in regenerated souls. When it comes to genuine faith, numbers show that prayer in schools did little to lead people to the savior but did a great job of alienating people from the truth that was forced down their throats rather than communicated to them with love and grace. It also contributed to a Christian sub-culture in many parts of the country that rose up many uninterested, luke-warm moralists and not many sold out followers of Jesus.

I think the next thing we have to do is deal with the source of our identity. The reason we want to Christianize everything is because we are looking for a security that was secured at the Cross of Jesus. This isn’t a Christian country – deal with it – neither is China and thousands of people experience regeneration there every day. Our identity isn’t in our nation, it’s in our God. I’m not anti-patriotic, I love my country. But I’ve learned to love my country for what it is rather than trying to pretend that it’s something its not. Colossians says that we have been delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred into the Kingdom of the living God. Our ultimate citizenship lies with him—lets be satisfied in that.