“In so many ways, Christians had become the Jews of our time—the scapegoats of choice for the thug regimes around the world,” Michael Horowitz says in this interesting interview with World.
Q: How can Christians involved in politics make the world a better place?
Take a look at what William Wilberforce did. His lessons: Be very attentive to defining yourself and not letting others define you. Understand that politics is seductive and corruptive. Understand that “us against them” and demonization of the other side is not very Christian—and won’t succeed. And don’t simply say, “I care about these issues” and sign letters, because that doesn’t count.
Interesting article. Thanks for posting the link. I’m not sure why he thinks writing letters isn’t helpful? It’s my understanding that writing letters to your elected officials is one way to influence them. What do you think?
Whenever I mention writing my congressman about something, my political science friend applauds me for my optimism and freedom from his cynical views, so I think many don’t believe letter writing is effective. But I’m not sure Horowitz is talking about that specifically. Elsewhere in the interview, he criticizes the doom-day pleas from activist groups which send letters and emails to people asking them to sign or copy and forward to their representatives. I’ve often wondered how effective the form letters are, and that maybe what he’s talking about more so than personal letter writing.
Still, he may very well be saying writing letters alone is not enough, that we should find a place or cause to advocate and work on it.
He is not against letter writing. He is against letter writing only. If letter writing is the full extent of our activism, it’s much like the guy described in the Epistle of James who says to the poor person, “Be warmed and filled.” without doing anything to feed or clothe anyone. How many wail about prayer getting removed from government schools when they never attend the prayer meeting in their own church. How many cry about a Ten Commandments monument getting removed from a public venue but cannot recite all ten commands themselves, let alone the meanings from the Small Catechism. And actually teaching them in their churches or applying them in their own lives, meditating upon them day and night as the Bible invites, no, commands us to do? Ha!
That’s what Horowitz is talking about. Not merely writing a letter but doing something about the situation on a personal level.
I like his warning about “demonization.” Alas, I have witnessed many on the “religious right” do this very thing–and some of it recently is out of control. If I hear another sly reference to Obama as being something out of the book of Revelation, I will scream.