Historian Alvin Schmidt points out how the spread of Christianity and Christian influence on government was primarily responsible for outlawing infanticide, child abandonment, and abortion in the Roman Empire (in AD 374); outlawing the brutal battles-to-the-death in which thousands of gladiators had died (in 404); outlawing the cruel punishment of branding the faces of criminals (in 315); instituting prison reforms such as the segregating of male and female prisoners (by 361); stopping the practice of human sacrifice among the Irish, the Prussians, and the Lithuanians as well as among other nations; outlawing pedophilia; granting of property rights and other protection to women; banning polygamy (which is still practiced in some Muslim nations today); prohibiting the burning alive of widows in India (in 1829); outlawing the painful and crippling practice of binding young women's feet in China (in 1912); persuading government officials to begin a system of public [Christian] schools in Germany (in the sixteenth century); and advancing the idea of compulsory education of all children in a number of European countries.
During the history of the church, Christians have had a decisive influence in opposing and often abolishing slavery in the Roman Empire, in Ireland, and in most of Europe (though Schmidt frankly notes that a minority of "erring" Christian teachers have supported slavery in various centuries). In England, William Wilberforce, a devout Christian, led the successful effort to abolish the slave trade and then slavery itself throughout the British Empire by 1840.
In the United States, though there were vocal defenders of slavery among Christians in the South, they were vastly outnumbered by the many Christians who were ardent abolitionists, speaking, writing, and agitating constantly for the abolition of slavery in the United States. Schmidt notes note that two-thirds of the American abolitionists in the mid-1830s were Christian clergymen, and he gives numerous examples of the strong Christian commitment of several of the most influential of the antislavery crusaders .... The American civil rights movement that resulted in the outlawing of the racial segregation and discrimination was led by Martin Luther King Jr., a Christian pastor, and supported by many Christian churches and groups.
There was also strong influence from Christian ideas and influential Christians in the formulation of the Magna Carta in England (1215) and the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Constitution (1787) in the United States. These are three of the most significant documents in the history of governments on the earth, and all three show the marks of significant Christian influence in the foundational ideas of how governments should function. These foundations for British and American government did not come about as a result of the "do evangelism, not politics" view.
Schmidt also argues that several specific components of modern views of government also had strong Christian influence in their origin and influence, such as individual human rights, individual freedom the equality of individuals before the law, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state....
Therefore I cannot agree with John MacArthur when he says, "God does not call the church to influence the culture by promoting legislation and court rulings that advance a scriptural point of view." When I look over that list of changes in governments and laws that Christians incited, I think God did call the church and thousands of Christians within the church to work to bring about these momentous improvements in human society throughout the world. Or should we say that Christians who brought about these changes were not doing so out of obedience to God? That these changes made no difference to God? This cannot be true.
MacArthur says, "Using temporal methods to promote legislative and judicial change ... is not our calling--and has no eternal value." I disagree. I believe those changes listed above were important to the God who declares, "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream" (amos 5:24). God cares how people treat one another here on earth, and these changes in government listed above do have eternal value in God's sight.
If the Christian church had adopted the "do evangelism, not politics" view throughout its history, it would never have brought about these immeasurably valuable changes among the nations of the world. But these changes did happen, because Christians realized that if they could influence laws and governments for good, they would be obeying the command of their Lord, "Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" (Eph. 2:10) (Politics - According to the Bible: A Comprehensive Resource for Understanding Modern Political Issues in Light of Scripture, Zondervan, 2010, 39-51).Leithart's Defending Constantine points out that Constantine was the first Greco-Roman ruler to recognize the church as its own distinct polis, as Augustine would later distinguish the city of God and the city of Man. This distinction was completely lost on pagans who had worshipped their emperor as a god and assumed that Rome was sacked in 410 because the gods were angry that they weren't getting their sacrifices.
Prior to the Christianization of the empire, there was no distinction much less separation of state and religion. Leithart shows that the pagan Roman Empire was drenched in sacrifice to the Roman gods from top to bottom. Today, modern pagans want to use this Christian distinction between church and state to silence the church in the world at large. Shouldn't this get us talking politics again?
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