Quotes 19 May 18

Imagine an airport security metal detector that doesn’t screen for metal but for religion standing at the entrance of the public square. The machine beeps anytime someone walks through it with a supernatural big-G God hiding inside one of their convictions, but it fails to pick up self-manufactured or socially constructed little-g gods. Into this public square the secularist, the materialist, the Darwinist, the consumerist, the elitist, the chauvinist, and, frankly, the fascist can all enter carrying their gods with them like whittled wooden figures in their pockets. Not so for the Christians or Jews or Muslims. Should they enter and make a claim on behalf of their big-G God, the siren will sound like a firetruck. What this means is that the public square is inevitably slanted toward the secularist and materialist. Public conversation is ideologically rigged. - Jonathan Leeman, How the Nations Rage: Rethinking Faith and Politics in a Divided Age (Thomas Nelson, 2018)p.35

It doesn’t matter whether people acknowledge the Bible as their book. The relevance of the Bible to politics depends entirely on the reality of God and the judgment of God. If either God or his judgment is not real, the Bible has no relevance whatsoever. But if God and his judgment are real, the Bible is eternally relevant. Does that mean Christians should impose the whole Bible on fellow Christians and non-Christians alike? Well, we don’t have the right to impose anything on anyone. But God does. The better question is, what commands does God impose on which people and how and when? Yes, he means to impose some things on everyone right now through governments. That’s why he gives authority to governments in the first place. Other things he imposes right now on children through parents. And still other things he imposes right now only on members of churches. In short, God assigns different jurisdictions to different institutions. Our task, then, is to pay close attention to what jurisdictions God has established for governments, for parents, and for churches, and only recommend those commands that he has authorized for each. And he will ultimately judge everyone accordingly.- Jonathan Leeman, How the Nations Rage: Rethinking Faith and Politics in a Divided Age (Thomas Nelson, 2018)p. (81–82)