A Special Note

To make no decision in regard to the growth of authoritarian government is already a decision for it.

• As Christians, we must not slip in to our own form of existential methodology. We do this if we try to keep hold of the value system, the meaning system, and the “religious matters” given in the Bible, while playing down what the Bible affirms about the cosmos, history, and specific commands in morals. If we are so marked, we then have no real absolute by which to help, or by which to judge the culture and society.

• As Christians, we are not only to know the right world view, the world view that tells us the truth of what is, but consciously to act upon that world view so as to influence society in all its parts and facets across the whole spectrum of life, as much as we can to the extent of our individual and collective ability.
• As we look back to the time of slavery and the time after the Industrial Revolution, we are thankful for Christians such as Elizabeth Fry, Lord Shaftesbury, William Wilberforce, and John Wesley who spoke out and acted publicly against slavery and against the noncompassionate use of accumulated wealth. I wonder if Christians of the future will be thankful that in our day we spoke out and acted against abuses in the areas of race and the noncompassionate use of wealth, yet simultaneously and equally balanced this in speaking out and acting also against the special sickness and threat of our age–the rise of authoritarian government? That is, will we resist authoritarian government in all its forms regardless of the label it carries and regardless of its origin? The danger in regard to the rise of authoritarian government is that Christians will be still as long as their own religious activities, evangelism, and life-styles are not disturbed.
• To make no decision in regard to the growth of authoritarian government is already a decision for it.