Saturday, January 28, 2012

a voice of civility


I have great respect for author Philip Yancey. His book What's So Amazing About Grace? was a game-changer for me, personally. So, when I saw the title of a post he put on his blog today, I clicked on the link immediately: "Election-Year Musings".

I strongly encourage you to read part one and visit his blog to follow up on part two when he posts it. He has some great, great thoughts and challenges for Christians this election year.

A couple of excerpts...

"Democracy requires us to recognize others’ rights even when we fundamentally disagree with them. It requires a civility in which I respect a person’s ultimate worth, and seek to persuade but not to coerce. For this reason modern democracy grew out of Christian soil. We must exercise the skill of ethical surgeons in deciding which moral principles apply to society at large."

"The more we focus on tangential issues, the less effective we will be in addressing matters of true moral significance. I hear very little from evangelicals about the impact of gun proliferation on violent crime, much less an issue like nuclear disarmament. I hear almost nothing about health care for the poor and protecting widows and orphans, both biblical mandates, and scant mention of the thirteen million children who die worldwide from malnutrition in a year. I hear talk about family values, but when an administration proposed legislation to allow mothers to take unpaid leave after childbirth, conservative religious groups opposed it."

View the entire post here. It is well-researched!

1 comment:

Sheila said...

Thanks for posting this, Troy!