This could easily be included in the last one, but I’m trying to break things up a little here.
Along with our ministry to the poor, the people of God have a mandate through the whole scripture to minister to all oppressed people, even fight to relieve them if necessary. This naturally puts Christians in direct confrontation with political policy and interpretation.
Of course, again, we do not have any examples in the New Testament of someone fighting a political battle for an oppressed people. Paul even tells slaves to be good slaves, although slavery in that time was significantly different from what Americans perceive it to be. It was still slavery, though.
We do have examples of people fighting for change at the expense of their own life. Paul is a great example of this. On the surface, especially with our American democratic filters, we could easily interpret Paul’s story as one who was fighting for his own rights. That is not totally true. As a Roman citizen, he declared his rights to love those who were punishing him. If it got out that they had punished a Roman citizen in such an illegal way, those representatives of the empire could have been in big trouble. He let them know to keep them out of trouble. But upon the choice to be set free, he instead used his rights to be further persecuted. Why? Because he wanted to bring the gospel to Rome itself, even to the emperor! He knew it might cost him his life. Prophets told him it would lead to his incarceration.
The problem with fighting political battles is that we quickly desire political power for ourselves instead of being witnesses of a people unconcerned with their lives on this earth. It is also easy to see the oppressors as our enemies, of which we are supposed to have none on this earth.
This is what I call the spirit of Absalom. Remember him? He was the son of King David who stopped people at the gate, convinced them they were not going to be heard by the King, and he ended up gathering power to himself out of rebellion towards his father. Too many Christians in the political realms are busy convincing others that they’re oppressed only to gather power unto themselves as leaders or little messiahs. Socialists are notorious for this. Their whole existence is dependent upon it.
It is a different witness altogether to fight for the freedom of others through self-sacrifice. This is the example we have in the scripture to follow, not rebellious power hungry people who claim Christ and create oppression for their own ends.
More tomorrow.
Peace.