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The Politics of Religion.

Just say this prayer, and send your seed faith gift in the mail and your miracle is on the way! Or, God just wants more submission from you, your church is your highest authority and those who do not obey are disobedient to the scriptures! Your bible is your highest priority, and your Pastor is God's mouthpiece? Sound familiar? Well you just might be caught up in the politics of your religion. I have heard well meaning people say that religion was just invented by man to reach God, where all God really wants from you is a relationship. Things like, "your church is just a means of facilitating a relationship with God. Being a christian doesn't mean that you have to be religious, but you must obey!" It is kind of hard to be caught up in church politics and remain faithful to God, after all someone has to run the church, and it might as well be you!

Religion is power for some people, and the innocent can become victims of someone's religious dogma. I am not saying that the church does't need doctrine or rules, because it does, but defining church politics can be a very hard thing. We in the church are still trying to get it right, the church is constantly changing and the desire not to change is where the church becomes political. The church has to be run by man, even though it's spiritual head is Jesus. Because we believe that he is in Heaven right now, the church in the modern times has been struggling to get the heart of Jesus right, that is why we have so many denominations and rules.

Some churches are liberal, some are conservative. Some are run by an ecclesiastical hierarchy and some are run by a board of directors called elders. Church government is the way the church is to be run, but we Christians differ on what kind of church government we want. Part of the church's doctrine will definitely determine what kind of church it is, and how it is to be run. You very rarely see a church basing their doctrine solely on the teaching of Jesus Christ, however all of them will admit this is what they are doing! A church without structure or government, is no church at all (you might hear.) A church is a:

Socio-Psychological organisation. Define: The Socio-Psychological Theory asserts that individual and society are interlinked. This means, an individual strives to meet the needs of the society and the society helps him to attain his goals. Through this interaction, the personality of an individual is determined.


God meets our needs through the organisation called the church. In order for the church to not be this, it would have to function as a democracy, a state democracy. The people in the church would have to have elections to vote for their leaders, not the leaders electing leaders. Kind of like a Republic, there would have to be checks and balances in church government, but the power of the church must belong to the people who attend it, ie. the Christians.  

This is Mike. 

   

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