Statism the Church

Scot McKnight has a good post on Statism the Church. He has uncovered a serious problem. I believe that he has hit the nail on the head, when he said,

The church, John Locke once said, is more likely to be influenced by the government than the government by the church. This could be called “Locke’s trap.”

America’s dominant narrative today is statism, the theory that the state ought to rule and the state can solve our problems.

The political narrative of today makes for a mesmerizing story: there are problems, we are strung along for two years or more with potential winning or losing, and then the Vote Day comes and the story’s next chapter starts. We may even give the story’s centrality a break for a year or so and then we start up all over again. But make no mistake, the American story is increasingly statism. We are in Locke’s trap. More significantly, statism entails an inherent belief, either explicit or implicit, in the state. It is a belief that solutions to our biggest problems are found in the state and the Christian’s responsibility from the Left or the Right is to get involved and acquire political power. Statism as I am using it here is the idol of making a human the world’s true ruler. Statism exalts humans and human plans and voting. Statism centers its faith in the future on who rules in D.C.. Statism makes government a god. Statism is a secular eschatology and soteriology. No one, of course, says this or even admits it but our lives betray our words.