Worship Weblog

Response to 'Strike the Empire Back' at Catapult

Posted by cicw

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

I thought this was a very insightful response by David Koyzis to catapult’s issue on Christians and empire (which itself was very insightful):

When I read catapult’s recent issue on empire, my response was admittedly one of ambivalence. Ambivalence, because, on the one hand, there is no doubt that evil works its way into political, economic and social systems so as to deform what would otherwise be ordinary human activities, but also because, on the other, these activities themselves have a legitimate place in God’s world. Given that all of his creation is fallen into sin, it is to be expected that the latter should manifest itself in systemic ways. We western Christians are indeed implicated, seemingly inextricably, in patterns of disobedience and oppression.

Nevertheless, this is not the whole story. There is an old Latin saying, Abusus non tollit usum, which, roughly translated, means: The abuse of something does not rule out its legitimate use. This is, in fact, a biblical insight rooted in a solid understanding that, while sin is as comprehensive as creation itself, the latter remains God’s creation and thus intrinsically good.

continued…

Tags: culture, empire, government, Koyzis, politics, sin, theology, world, z00002