Tag: politics

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Arguing About Politics – Tim Keller Sermon

Check out this great sermon on Mark 12:13-17 from Tim Keller. Here’s the description: The Pharisees pose a controversial question to Jesus when they ask him if they should pay taxes. Jesus responds with a revolutionary answer: He refuses political complacency, political simplicity, and political primacy. Jesus then models a revolutionary idea, showing his followers that the way to gain power is to give it away. Get your politics on!

It’s from a whole bunch of free sermons at the Redeemer Presbyterian website. You can also subscribe to all of these sermons via iTunes podcast.

Arguing About Politics MP3 – Tim Keller (right-click to download)

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Do Christians need a Christian prime minister?

Some Christians say some dumb stuff when it comes to politics. In this article Greg Clarke (from Centre for Public Christianity) shows that he is NOT one of them! There has been a very small kerfuffle regarding whether Julia Gillard’s atheism means that she’s unsuitable to be Australia’s Prime Minister. Clarke’s article is worth reading.

Here’s a snippet:

Nowhere in the New Testament is there any concept that a Christian ‘prophet’ might be given word from God on who should govern the land. The arrival of Jesus changes all of that theocratic language, and the role of ‘prophecy’ changes: it becomes a call to recognise the authority of Jesus, and to follow his teachings and his call to turn back to God.

The New Testament famously calls on Christians to “be subject to the governing authorities” (in Romans 13:1) but it certainly does not say, “go and appoint the governing authorities yourself”. In fact, it says quite the opposite. The very next verse suggests that if you resist an authority, you are in fact resisting God, because God is in control ultimately of who leads and who doesn’t.

Read the rest here.