Politics
Thursday, October 23, 2014
1:11 PM
What is politics?
Thomas Aquinas, Virtue:  "“The object for which a community is gathered is to live a virtuous life. For men to consort together that they may thus attain a fullness of life which would not be possible to each living singly: and the full life is one which is lived according to virtue. The object of human society is the virtuous life." (quoted in Robin Gill, Handbook of Christian Ethics, p. 160)
Hobbes, people desire power.  Politics is the structure by which people negotiate power and fairness.
Politics
Involves the organization of social life within a particular boundary (city, state, nation).
Involves the means of obtaining power within that particular sphere of shared life.
Involves the uses and limitations of power.
Involves the ways conflicts between persons are resolved.  
Involves how those who govern discern the outcomes they should pursue and the means people find unacceptable in pursuing them. 
The question of ethics is essentially, "how do I exercise my freedom?"  And of Christian ethics, "How do I exercise 
The role of the church in politics
The premise of Skinner's article--the Church more effectively influences a community through evangelism, sanctification, and revival. 
Elaboration from Carl. F. H. Henry, " The uneasy Conscience of  Modern Fundamentalism (Grand Rapids, 1947), "The Evangelical task primarily is the preaching of the Gospel, in interest of individual regeneration by the supernatural grace of God, in such a way that divine redemption can be recognized as the best solution of our problems, individual and social.  This produces within history, through the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit, a divine society that transcends national and international lines.  The corporate testimony of belivers, in their purity of life, should provide for the world and example of the divine dynamic to overcome evils in every realm." (p. 88). 
"Christ is the answer to every problem was the message thundered by fundamentalist preacher from their pulpits, Henry note.  Yet when the topic arose of Christ's answer to crucial social ills, fundamentalists 'suddenly fall all over each other in the rush to make it clear that they have no message which is relevant to modern political, sociological, economic, and educational tensions."  
I would suggest a slightly different role
The church seeks to model 