SocIety and econoME

To begin with I need to say to a certain reader (you know who you are) thank you for a great discussion and debate about this subject. It has set off some fantastic thoughts in my head and has made me think hard about both my ideas about society and economy and my place in the world as a Christian.

Yesterday I was talking to a reader of this blog who I have come to think of as a friend about governments and societies. This was not kicked off as would be expected by the current situation in the middle east but by comparing the governments of the UK and the US. At times it was a fairly heated debate but always friendly and constructive, it showed our strong beliefs on both sides of the debate but also our mutual respect which I felt made the discussion much more constructive and firmly Christian. If my friend would like to write a response to this post I would be more than happy to link to it for you all to read.

So I have been thinking about how we take our place in society and how that sits for us as Christians. As Christians where do we stand in modern society and what should we be doing as Christians in society and should our faith be a deciding factor in voting.

When thinking about writing this post two words came came to my mind, society and economy and more specifically socIety and econoME. As a Christian we are taught that we should think about and serve our fellow man, we should look to help those in need and always look to help the poor. but what does this mean when it comes to society and economy? what does this mean in terms of the governments we should vote for and our outlook on our national and global states.

In my opinion I believe this means we should be looking towards governments who are trying to help as many people as possible. I believe we should be voting for governments who are looking to support everyone so that as many people as possible are helped and that care is provided for all. In a world where we are all looking at a financial situation that is not too good, that our societies are struggling to pay for all the services we have had in the past what should our thoughts on this be?

I think that we often fall in to the trap of thinking about what is it that I want out of society and in living in an economy where we are all encouraged to look after number one and being comfortable with that. It seems that at times we look after ourselves and then we look to how we can help people with what we have left. We think that as long as we are living comfortably then whatever we have left after that we can then use to help the people we should be helping.

This though is surely the wrong way to be thinking about it, surely we should be looking to the way that Jesus and then the Apostles and then the early Church lived and take the lead from there. If you look to how they lived then everything was held in common and everyone's basic needs were taken care of. After that then everything left over was used to help those who needed it and to further the work of God.

I am not suggesting however that we should all move our society towards some sort of communism, but I am suggesting that we should take the spirit of this culture and apply it to our own. I am however suggesting that we should look to take care of our basic needs and then look towards how we can use the rest to help those in need and to further God's Kingdom on Earth. We should not be looking at how I will look after myself, we should be trusting God because He has promised to care for us and protect us and so we will be take care of, we should be looking to see how we can help those who are in need. And we should be using this to show God to the world and teach this idea of giving to the world. If we are clothed and fed with a roof over our head and we have the equipment and provisions to do the work we need for God then we should be using the rest to help those in need.

I think I have go on enough for one post, I still have more I want to say on this subject so if you tune in tomorrow I will post part two of this comment on society and our Christian place in it.