Promises, Promises | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

Free Newsletters:

RSS Feeds |

Audio |

Twitter

Home > 2007 > August

Christianity Today, August, 2007 |

Promises, Promises

How to really build a 'great society.'

Charles Colson with Anne Morse | posted 8/07/2007 08:39AM

2 of 2

Ironically, while Western nations appear to be in the grip of the political illusion, the developing world is more realistic. A few years ago, political observers were convinced that South America's poor would embrace liberation theology with its Marxist promises of justice and wealth redistribution. But to their surprise, the people rejected it. The reason: They knew governments were corrupt, and they distrusted political messiahs.

They chose instead Pentecostalism and conservative Christianity. Women discovered that conversion meant their husbands would stay home with them instead of going to taverns at night, and thus they became great evangelists. The church delivered the goods, and that was far more attractive than the vain promises of politicians.

Perhaps, after this exhausting, multimillion-dollar presidential campaign, Americans may be so gorged on politics that we will finally say "enough!" Then we, like our neighbors to the south, will reject the promises of political messiahs in favor of building up the crumbling cultural infrastructure: our families, our churches, and our communities. We who have historically kept politics and culture in balance can help open our neighbors' eyes to the same realization: A far richer life is ahead once we reject illusory campaign promises.

Related Elsewhere:

Weblog has been collecting news about religion and the 2008 presidential campaign.

Christianity Today's articles on law and politics are available online.

Charles Colson's most recent columns include:

Overheated Rhetoric | What should we make of bestselling books blasting Christians? (June 21, 2007)

War on the Weak | Eugenics has made a lethal comeback. (December 4, 2006)

The Earmark Epidemic | The disease must be cured for the common good. (September 25, 2006)

Bad Judgment | Ruling imperils faith-based programs around the country. (August 1, 2006)

Emerging Confusion | Jesus is the truth whether we experience him or not. (June 1, 2006)

first page |

2 of 2

share this page

August 2007, Vol. 51, No. 8

E-mail this page

Write CT

Print this article

Post a comment

Reader Reviews are below

Subscribe to Christianity Today and get 3 free trial issues. No credit card required.

Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. Offer valid in U.S. only.

If you decide you want to keep Christianity Today coming, honor your invoice for just $19.95 and receive nine more issues, a full year in all. If not, simply write "cancel" across the invoice and return it. The three trial issues are yours to keep, regardless.

Click here for international orders

2-for-1 Gifts!

[Reader Reviews]

Average User Rating:

Displaying 1 - 3 of 4 comments.

See all comments

Mark Chandler

Posted: August 17, 2007 9:22 PM

Colson has this one wrong. The government did not respond to Katrina because it was too large...it (FEMA) was virtually non existant. Or should I say it is a virtual agency? After 30 year of Replublicanism dismantaling the Federal Government, there was no one to do any thing and no things to do anything with. Only a strong Central Government can respond to large problems. And our only hope of any protection from or regualtion of multi-national corps is to have a large Central government with the will to retake control of all three branches of the government and run off, bar, deportoor imprison the lobbiest and corp CEO's that currently own the Federal government. Most americans do not realize as much as 80% of the legislation passed at the federal level is produced in corperate offices in the format required by congress and it smiply requires a signature. then the envelopes full of cash can be passe out. As with Abramoff right on the floor during proceedings.

Jake Meador

Posted: August 13, 2007 2:12 PM

I just returned from a two-month stay in Zambia and I feel like Mr. Colson may have too rosy an outlook on the effects of Pentecostalism and Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa. I rejoice that we have so many dear brothers and sisters in Africa, however Pentecostalism has played a role in two significant African problems. One area is that in many ways it is essentially a Christian animism for many. I don't believe that how it functions in the States, but in countries with long histories of animism, Pentecostalism is a way to maintain a link with their past. I heard people speaking of good and bad spirits, referring to angels and demons, but take away the Christian lingo and it could just as easily have been about spirits they worshiped when they were animists. Consequently, they attribute many problems to good and bad spirits. This plays out in many ways- someone gets sick with malaria, and an evil spirit is blamed and the person dies because the malaria is untreated. (Continued)

Chris Barrett

Posted: August 07, 2007 12:18 PM

Dear Mr. Colson, As a very sophisticated individual with lots of political experience, you know full well that "the political" is like oxygen in the human blood: it is everywhere. Anytime one speaks of fulfilling human needs and wants [and how different these are!] within society, one has come into the realm of the political. You truncate "politics" as a campaign, as elections, as legislation and so forth. These are among the very partisan aspects of "the political". But the minute we hear a politician say "we should not make this a political issue" or "they are just trying to 'play politics' with this..." we should know one or two things immediately: either the individual speaking is ignorant or they are being very dishonest; human beings are by nature political beings for the fact of our common earthly reality is: the political occurs when two or more people, coming together to seek to resolve a tension arising between human needs or wants and social facts. e.g: Religion

The allotted time for commenting has ended.